There are widely held beliefs about the preeminent importance of a human child's development during the formative months in the mother's womb and after birth from age one to three. But students of Christian Science know of a higher law and learn to accept different testimony. The cruel suggestion that the individual's development must occur at certain times and under certain conditions is based on the assumption that man is material. When someone is reaching out for a more Christian, more merciful, approach to existence, he can discover for himself that man is actually spiritual, made in the image and likeness of God, and as such develops perpetually.
Mrs. Eddy shows in her inspired writings that it is not necessary to view man from a limited, mortal standpoint, and neither essential nor Christian for an individual to be held in the thrall of crippling mortality. Directing thought to the spiritual nature of the real man she writes, "Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontaneously, even as light emits light without effort."Science and Health, p. 262;
The first chapter of the book of Genesis gives us the higher standpoint from which to reason. That chapter states that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Since Christian Science teaches that God is Mind, a student of this Science must conclude that man is made in the image and likeness of God, Mind, and therefore reflects divine intelligence. Such an acknowledgment, when prayerfully and consistently made, approaches the "higher standpoint," from which "one rises spontaneously, even as light emits light without effort." Divine intelligence is constantly pouring forth to the true spiritual man from his creator, divine Mind, and man effortlessly radiates this intelligence through divine qualities.
