Christian Science emphasizes that the divine Mind is eternal, without beginning or end, and that the real man is the spiritual reflection of this eternal Mind. Whether or not we are accepting the eternal Mind as our own Mind can be determined by our attitude toward age.
If we have a child of eight, we don't give him the keys to the car and suggest that he drive off into the mountains for the weekend. We accept his limitations without a mental struggle. Yet when one approaches eighty, it is not unusual to have a tremendous battle to continue with activities one has engaged in since he was eighteen. To be consistent, one should be just as vehement in denying the limitations of the eight-year-old as the limitations of the eighty-year-old. Otherwise, there is something wrong with his thinking.
Humanly speaking, of course, we have not demonstrated all of the timeless reality of man. But we do demonstrate it by degrees. Insofar as the limitations of childhood are overcome by the seemingly young and the limitations of age are overcome by the seemingly old, we are demonstrating what is true of man in God's perfect likeness. And we demonstrate the eternal qualities in our present human experience by being wise in assessing the degree to which each of us is demonstrating his eternal manhood.
