The word "child" uniquely suggests a spectrum of personal memories—of beloved bears and tricycles, of living with brothers and sisters and of schools and houses—memories diffracted in the light of disappointments as well as joys. Each of us humanly is—or was—somebody's child, arriving innocent and then compelled into that mystery called "growing up."
But the word "child" is often used in a rather different context in Christian Science. When Mrs. Eddy writes of man as the child of God, it is not in reference to a little boy or girl. For instance, she says: "You can never demonstrate spirituality until you declare yourself to be immortal and understand that you are so. Christian Science is absolute; it is neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing towards it; it is at this point and must be practised there from. Unless you fully perceive that you are the child of God, hence perfect, you have no Principle to demonstrate and no rule for its demonstration. By this I do not mean that mortals are the children of God,— far from it." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 242.
I used to wonder about this distinctive use of the word "child." Could God's man be described by a term that universally implies human characteristics—including struggle and limitation? Wouldn't this point to a physical rather than a spiritual identity?
