Oneness is the nature of infinite Spirit, God. Anything other than oneness would divide God's omnipotence and omnipresence—an utter impossibility.
"Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord" (Jeremiah)
Jer. 23:24 . "Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else" (Deuteronomy).
Deut. 4:39 .
If God is All, He must be One. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, explains, "The allness of Deity is His oneness."
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 267 . Christian Science has this logic at its heart, and its entire teaching proceeds from this basis.
But Christian Science doesn't talk about God's oneness as a human theory might. Instead it reveals the thing itself— the divine reality—so that we feel this oneness of God making a major practical difference to us. Far from being an old-fashioned theme that doesn't have much to say to us today, God's oneness, more clearly understood, will radically affect our daily lives.
Most of us would concur that there is one God, but aren't we tempted still to have something more than His oneness— to feel we are coping, for example, with many material circumstances, bodily laws, people, causes, effects, and so on? Wouldn't it help, then, to remember that we need to consider only one thing, the one All-God who must be, and is, the only force, cause, law, substance, and necessity in our experience?
So tangible and all-convincing was Mrs. Eddy's initial spiritual experience of God as the only Life that she began to realize how the human idolatry of matter had been limiting mankind's thought of God. She saw that the habitual day-to-day impression of living in matter had the effect of shutting out the concept of God, Spirit, and the truth of man in the perfectness of His image. It made Him seem no longer God, no longer all-powerful or truly present in any tangible, meaningful way.
Instead of starting, then, with what the eyes see, with a creation full of material multiplicity, and then trying to figure out where God fits in relation to all this, Christian Science requires us to start wholly with God Himself.
It is true that only through our "new birth" and the deepest ongoing Christianization of our lives will we demonstrate more of God's allness and oneness. Absolute declarations without ongoing spiritual regeneration can never speedily transport mortal mind to heaven, since the fact is that this supposed mortal ego has to be laid off. It isn't going anywhere! Speaking of what one perceives "as one grows into the manhood or womanhood of Christianity," Mrs. Eddy explains, "This newly awakened consciousness is wholly spiritual; it emanates from Soul instead of body, and is the new birth begun in Christian Science."
Miscellaneous Writings, p. 16 . She also shows that inevitably each of us must sit at the feet of Christ Jesus, where we learn in utter humility that we must "go, and sin no more."
John 8:11 .
Science reveals the rule that we need for our spiritual progress. We are to think, reason, and live right now as fully as we possibly can on the basis of God's oneness. Mrs. Eddy states this rule with scientific exactness. She writes: "There are not two,—Mind and matter. We must get rid of that notion. As we commonly think, we imagine all is well if we cast something into the scale of Mind, but we must realize that Mind is not put into the scales with matter; then only are we working on one side and in Science."
Mis., p. 280 .
Is it actually possible to think and live this way? Yes, it is. And no, we don't have to wait until sometime later when we are "good enough."
We need not be swayed by the beguiling arguments of mortal mind that it would be immodest, unrealistic, or perhaps unchristian to seek to have only one Mind and no matter as our working basis. This contention has been increasing in subtlety through the years of this century. To yield to the view that we are now, after all, material human beings who are using Christian Science to work ourselves out of actual material existence is to try to use a watered-down version of Christian Science having little to do with the great discovery and revelation.
As we go forward genuinely obedient to the rule of Science, we find that Christ truly does open our thought to the fact that material conditions in all their vivid, multifarious detail are not what they seem, because God's oneness is the supreme fact of all being.
The human sense of mind—mortal mind—persists in asking questions about our situation from its own standpoint. There is a story about a school principal who was visiting an elementary school and asked a little girl in rather lordly fashion, "In what country are elephants found?" She answered calmly, "Elephants are very large and intelligent animals and are seldom lost."
Similarly, mortal mind often demands answers to such questions as, How can I manage to heal a situation that is so complex, a disease that is so extensive, a life that is so sinful? The answer of Christian Science is that God is One. The Christ and Holy Ghost turn us from fear and false detail to an extraordinarily different reality, to the one, perfect God, and His perfect man.
Since God Himself is not separated from the action of being, there can be no opposing or countering action. He is omnipresent and all-acting.
His goodness is eternal, continuous, without any opposite called evil. The marvelous unity of good characterizes God and His creation, including man.
True consciousness is conscious of God's loving care of man and creation, of His perfection and beauty and order, of the rich naturalness of good everywhere. This consciousness belongs to us; it is already ours. Since man is the reflection of the one Mind that is God, we find it natural to have thoughts that heal. In fact, it is natural to awake to a wholly different concept of manhood.
Instead of thinking of ourselves as lost, sinful material mortals with a mind that is trying to grasp something spiritual, we begin to understand ourselves as the very outcome of Spirit— as man in God's likeness. You could say we are like those elephants described by the little girl—not lost in the first place.
We are really required to do one thing above all else in order to heal and be healed. One thing? Yes, one thing. But what about all that "metaphysics" we're supposed to know? Well, as we obediently begin with one infinite Mind, we find that our spiritual knowing is empowered from on high. It is from Mind. However, if we start from the basis of being mortals, separated from God, we have a basis of two, not one. We may well find ourselves plagued with mortal mind's questions as to whether we actually know the metaphysics, whether we are adequate to "make it work."
So first, above all, we are required to do one thing. It is to have no other gods before God, to have the one Mind that is God and not to suppose we employ a limited material selfhood of our own with which we intend to try to think some thoughts that might help. Then flows into our consciousness something of what He is, something of the great divine reality of things, something more of love for our neighbor.
In the powerful new light of this reality we no longer suppose that the impressions we've previously had about our own abilities and inabilities are very important. We're not very interested in a small, imperfect mind of our own, but we're interested in the vast Truth that is appearing. It's not that we become "super metaphysicians" through some tremendous effort of will. Choosing God's oneness and allness, we find spiritual realization awaiting us and a new recognition of God's giving to man, which illumines the metaphysical truths of divine Science beyond what we may have supposed possible.
This Bible statement in James reminds us of the basic need: "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded."
James 4:8 .Isn't that the need in healing—to draw close to God, so close that He becomes to us what He actually is: the All-in-all of being, the one Mind, the one omnipresent Spirit and our only Life?
Our basis is not two but one. It is the Science that restores Christ-healing. It is what we most need now.
