The essentiality of founding our thought and life on spiritual realities was indicated by Christ Jesus. Doing so was a prime characteristic of his own life. It explains his mastery over matter, evident in the healings he brought about, in passing safe through a hostile mob, and in many other acts. He taught his disciples, "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit."Matt. 7:16-18; Truth, God, is consistent in self-expression.
In metaphysical logic, as in human, the nature of our conclusions is determined by the premises we start from. In order to apprehend and prove Christian Science to our highest capacity, it is necessary to adopt the most spiritual and metaphysically precise starting point we can. Spiritual healing is not the consequence of praying or reasoning from material premises but from spiritual. "For right reasoning," Mrs. Eddy explains, "there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence." Science and Health, p. 492;
Spiritual understanding and its accompanying demonstration are the products of reasoning and realization that rest on divine reality. But what is reality, what is it like? Divine Science shows that existence is eternally concordant—that God is infinite Mind, Mind without beginning or end, without restriction or opposition. Science teaches that God is omnipresent Love, whose power and all-presence rule out the possibility anywhere of hatred, pain, suffering, decay, disease. Science affirms that God is the single cause of all existence and that man and the universe are imbued with the perfection and limitless good that characterize God.
