In accord with the Bible, the Christian Science textbook presents scientifically the true nature of God and man. From the basis of the textbook's inspired statements of Truth, one's study, prayer, and practical application of God's law provide life-changing insight into spiritual reality. The student of this textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, begins to understand that reality comprises only what God has created, only what is perfectly good and pure and permanent. Anything less—matter, sickness, sin, mortality—is fundamentally unreal.
The real man, as Christian Science teaches, is not found in the category of "anything less." Man is the pure reflection, the perfect manifestation, the illimitable expression, of God, divine Mind. In Science and Health our Leader defines man in this way: "The compound idea of infinite Spirit; the spiritual image and likeness of God; the full representation of Mind." Science and Health, p. 591. No unreality—including the material limitations of the flesh, the evil and discord of mortality—can darken the divine revelation of man's true identity.
There are not two kinds of man—the first spiritual and holy, the second material and predestined to sin, suffering, and death. There is only one kind of man: entirely spiritual, wholly good, eternal. Again, "anything less" would be fundamentally a false belief, a misconception, a counterfeit of truth. Mortal man is a myth, an enigma, a dream held by a so-called mortal mind, which is itself without substance or entity. The dream of mortality, with its suggestions of evil and limitation, at no point coincides with the reality of immortal Truth, where man is the immortal evidence of God's goodness. We read in the textbook, "Man as the offspring of God, as the idea of Spirit, is the immortal evidence that Spirit is harmonious and man eternal." Ibid., p. 29.
