Ideally, knowledge gained through education lifts the learner out of ignorance and limitation into a greater understanding of universal ideals and phenomena. This pursuit of truth helps cultivate a higher selfhood through increased self-knowledge and self-control. A mind thus influenced will demand more of itself. It will cultivate higher ambition and wider service. And all this helps society.
Christian Science teaches that true education reveals aspects of God's nature—His essence and government. According to the revelations of the Bible, from the Old Testament to the New, God is One and All. If God is All, it necessarily follows that God and man are at one—though not in any mystical sense. God and man are one, yet distinct; one in quality. The book of Isaiah expresses this unity of God and man in these words: "Now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand."Isa. 64:8.
Education provides an inspired service to mankind when it lifts thought, at least to a degree, above finite selfhood, above mortality and materialism to spiritual identity. This frees the learner to serve God and his fellowman.
