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Two Halves?

From the January 1968 issue of The Christian Science Journal


"You were half, now you're whole," goes the song. Propaganda like this often enters thought under the guise of a catchy tune. But is a single man or woman only a half? Does finding a partner make one complete? This would liken a friendship or marriage to a couple of trees leaning on each other: if one wavers, the other comes tumbling down.

If you take the Adam-dream viewpoint (see Genesis, Chapter 2), it would appear logical that man requires a mate to become complete, since Adam was apparently incomplete without Eve. However, the student of Christian Science does not work from the basis of the Adam allegory. He looks to God, divine Mind, not to another human being, to find himself. In the first chapter of Genesis we discover that God made man in His image and likeness, and His work is complete. Man is the compound idea of God, that is, he expresses God fully. It is therefore impossible for an individual to express incompleteness or for God to be only half expressed by any one of His ideas.

The complete man is not a material union of two individuals but the blending of spiritual qualities that already exist in individual spiritual man. As Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, "Union of the masculine and feminine qualities constitutes completeness."Science and Health, p. 57; And Christ Jesus said, "What . . . God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."Mark 10:9; At some time each one must discover his or her spiritual status as the complete idea of God. Then human relationships are placed on a secure footing.

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