"The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of man's origin." Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 262. Mary Baker Eddy makes this arresting statement in the chapter entitled "Creation" in the Christian Science textbook. Since discord in human experience stems from an inaccurate assumption regarding man's origin, one can conclude that harmony—joy, peace, well-being, and so on—must be the concomitant of a correct understanding of the source of true being.
As we cut through the tangle of misconceptions about the nature of life and reality, a fundamental question we must come to grips with is this: Does identity—our own being and individuality—begin with human conception and birth? The commonly held theory of biological life claims that it does—that a complex physiological process, including chance fertilization, combination of genetic codes, and chemical reactions, results in an embryo, which then develops in the womb until it is born into the world as a new individual.
Do we really believe that our own origin is merely a chance phenomenon? If this is what we accept without question as true about ourselves, we are also virtually accepting vulnerability to disorder, or to an unpredictable destiny, or happenstance, or accident. Yet man's life is governed by God, who is divine Principle. We need to see man's existence as established, ordered, directed, and maintained only by Principle, omniscient Mind. The real identity of each individual exists coeternally with the Maker. Mind and idea are forever one.
