CHRISTIAN SCIENCE takes a strong stand against gambling, and for a very good reason. According to general belief, the health, intelligence, and inclinations of a mortal are determined to a certain extent by probability or chance. In fact, the belief in chance enters into every claim of disease, sin, lack, and other errors that mortals seem to encounter. How important, then, to arm ourselves with the changeless truth of being—that man is governed by God—with which we can destroy all these beliefs in chance!
But how can we do this if we participate in any form of gambling? It is impossible to realize God's unfailing and omnipotent care for His beloved child when we rely on unintelligent chance to bring us any benefit. Christian Science reveals that man is the child of God, forever cared for, guided and guarded by his omnipresent Parent, who loves His child with a love so great that it has no bounds or limits.
According to the spiritual record of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, man is created as a perfect reflection of the perfect creator, and God gave man "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth." And we read further, "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.'' There is no record of evil in this chapter. Man's being is dependent only upon God's being. Man has nothing that he did not derive from God. Every quality that man expresses is a reflection of the Divine.
Let us, as an example, consider the quality of health. Contrary to the testimony of the material senses, health is never fluctuating and never subject to chance. This fact becomes evident when we realize that health is not a quality of matter. It is a quality of God. And God, the divine Mind, expresses this quality in infinite measure in His image and likeness. If health were a personal possession of man, he might perhaps lose it; but when health is expressed by the divine Mind in man, man can never lose it. If man's health were subject to chance, God, the divine Principle, would have to be subject to chance. And that is, of course, an absurdity.
Whether the belief in chance masquerades as heredity, contagion, accident, poisoning, or functional disorder, it can never change the eternal fact that man expresses God's infinite perfection.
Man dwells forever in the divine Mind as Mind's perfect, complete, and unchanging idea, forever controlled by this Mind, or Principle, through unchanging, harmonious laws, always safe, always manifesting perfect health and harmony.
"Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God's unerring direction and thus bring out harmony." So writes Mrs. Eddy on page 424 of Science and Health.
"Under divine Providence there can be no accidents, since there is no room for imperfection in perfection." The understanding, even in a degree, of these few lines has often healed effects of serious accidents very quickly. Some years ago the writer was in an accident, and according to X-ray pictures the pelvis was broken right through. Immediately after regaining consciousness, he began to declare the above statement from Science and Health and asked a Christian Science practitioner in a distant city to give him treatment. No surgery or cast was employed. Twenty days later he began using both feet, and in another forty days he was back at his work. The words quoted from Science and Health can be applied to any case where chance seems to govern.
If we are tempted to believe that a disorderly function has happened to develop in the body, we can immediately cancel this belief in chance by applying the understanding that the only function going on anywhere is God, Principle, expressing Himself.
Function, therefore, must ever be perfect and intact, never subject to chance. A human image in a mirror has no choice but to be the image of the person in front of the mirror and must reflect every move of that person. In the same way, God's man, His image and likeness, has no choice but to be an individual image of God, expressing His infinite, effortless, harmonious, unceasing activity. This is a demonstrable fact. Chance cannot change it.
If we seem to experience lack of supply, caused by "bad luck" in business, unwise investments, or some other untoward condition, we can know that because man includes all right ideas, the idea of supply is inherent in him. It is not something coming to him from outside—material sources. This eternal truth is a law, and law cannot be changed by chance. Where law governs, chance cannot operate.
Some school pupils believe that they happen to have the wrong teacher and adults sometimes believe they happen to have the wrong executive at the job, one who is unjust and will prevent them from getting on. The fact is, however, that as the perfect idea of God, man is dependent only on the divine Mind, which conceives him, the Mind in which he dwells. Every detail of man's being is directly controlled by God, never by chance.
We can courageously deny any notion of chance, including supposedly prenatal and hereditary conditions. But just as the law of mathematics will work only when we use it correctly, so Christian Science, the law of omnipotent Love and Principle, will work only when correctly applied. Therefore it is necessary that we exclude all beliefs of chance from our thinking by denying them every time the temptation presents itself to indulge in gambling.
As Christ Jesus so vividly illustrated in his life, we too must consciously cultivate an understanding of our loving Father, God, and His unchanging and omnipotent care for His beloved child. Acknowledging His wisdom, we are guided in every step. In reality we dwell in the divine realm of Mind, where chance can never reach us.
Mrs. Eddy writes in "Unity of Good" (p. 26), "Now if it be true that God's power never waneth, how can it be also true that chance and change are universal factors,—that man decays-?"
And the ninety-first Psalm assures us: "Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." What a wonderful protection against chance!
