Since a high goal of every Christian Scientist is to attain the ability to demonstrate Truth, and goodness is the way of attaining it, then the desire to be good must be one's constant purpose. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, says: "To energize wholesome spiritual warfare, to rebuke vainglory, to offset boastful emptiness, to crown patient toil, and rejoice in the spirit and power of Christian Science, we must ourselves be true. There is but one way of doing good, and that is to do it! There is but one way of being good, and that is to be good!"Retrospection and Introspection, p. 86; To this end we have Christ Jesus' example to show us the way.
Christ Jesus lived the real nature of goodness and taught that it derives from God. One time when he was addressed as "good Master," he responded, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Matt. 19:16, 17; Through his conscious divine sonship Jesus was endowed with goodness. But unenlightened mortals, tracing their origin to matter, are not just born into goodness, nor does it simply overtake them. The state of goodness must be cultivated or attained through obedience to the demands—yes, the commands—of Spirit, God.
So goodness is a matter of obedience, of volition, an act of choosing to attain it. It comes only as one is willing to have the human character reformed and redeemed, and to work at reforming it. Christian Science, like any other subject, requires diligence, perseverance, even labor, if we are to become proficient in its demonstration. We attain degrees of goodness as we consciously strive to attain them, and we demonstrate accordingly.
