The Bible has a singular place in the Church of Christ, Scientist. Of course this isn't surprising to anyone who is familiar with Christian Science. Its Discoverer, Mary Baker Eddy, grew up with the Scriptures. And when her life was at the brink of death, it was to the Bible that she turned and found herself healed through its message. So great was her confidence in the power and inspiration of the Bible that she actually ordained it, along with Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, to be the pastor of her Church. It must have seemed as unusual and radical in 1894 as it might to some people today to think of a pastorship being established in this way.
In writing to The Christian Science Board of Directors in December of that year, she spoke of the power of having this dual and Bible-based pastor and what it would do: "This will tend to spiritualize thought. Personal preaching has more or less of human views grafted into it. Whereas the pure Word contains only the living, health-giving Truth." Quoted in Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977), p. 72.
It's important to consider not only the trust Mrs. Eddy had in the power of "the pure Word" but also the confidence that she exhibited in individual and sincere study of the Bible and Science and Health. She believed that men and women sincerely committed to studying these books could develop the spiritual understanding of divine law that would heal sickness and overcome sin. Even when she established a By-Law in the Manual of The Mother Church for teaching classes in Christian Science, she kept uppermost this standard of individual study of the Bible along with the Christian Science textbook. She wrote regarding the Christian Science teacher's responsibility toward students: "He shall persistently and patiently counsel his pupils in conformity with the unerring laws of God, and shall enjoin them habitually to study the Scriptures and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as a help thereto." Man., Art. XXVI, Sect. 2.
Time after time, Mrs. Eddy's own students and workers in her household told of instances when under the most trying circumstances —as well as in the normal routine of her daily life—she turned to the Bible to guide her. She knew that the inspired Word of the Bible was synonymous with God's direction in her life. Science and Health itself was rooted in the Bible. And any effort to separate Science and Health from the Bible would be as ill-conceived and ignorant as would be any attempt to separate the discovery of Christian Science and the founding of the Church of Christ, Scientist, from Mrs. Eddy.
In Science each individual
is viewed as possessing the
spiritual sense and capacity
to commune directly with
divine Mind.
Undoubtedly the fact was not lost upon Mrs. Eddy that Jesus turned to the Scriptures and found there a sure defense against the malicious attempt of animal magnetism to turn him from his divinely directed course. Her solitary research into the Bible, which preceded her public ministry, followed Christ Jesus' precedent of turning to the Scriptures for divine guidance. Of her experience, she wrote: "For three years after my discovery, I sought the solution of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the Scriptures and read little else, kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to discovering a positive rule. The search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing.... The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually and apparently through divine power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: 'Unto us a child is born,... and his name shall be called Wonderful.'" Science and Health, p. 109.
It is natural when the conclusion that we draw from such faith in the Word of God impels us to renewed study of the Scriptures. This study isn't necessarily in formal Bible courses, but simply is the solitary, steady reading of the Bible. Mortal mind will quickly argue that this book is too difficult to read, that one needs a formal education in the Bible and considerable historical, archaeological, and cultural familiarity with Bible times in order to decipher the original meaning of the Scriptures. But this complex, off-putting theory about the Word of God is foreign to the teachings of Christian Science. In Science each individual is viewed as possessing the spiritual sense and capacity to commune directly with divine Mind.
God by His very nature as infinite Love constantly reveals Himself. And since man is His spiritual image and likeness, the ability to understand God and the spiritual meaning of the Bible is an inherent capacity of each one of us—even when the capacity needs to be developed more fully. We should be alert to any argument, whether it seems to originate in our own thought about ourselves or in the scholastic formulations of the world, that would deny or denigrate any person's ability to draw near to God and to know how to live in obedience with His spiritual message. Great spiritual reforms have been preceded by the discovery of individual capacity to know God and to understand Him. This is true whether we look to Moses' discovery of God as the great I am on a desolate mountain or to the great age of reform beginning in the late 1300s when the Bible was first and heroically translated into the vernacular of common people. In those early days of revolt, when the Bible began to reach men and women in everyday life, it was first translated and copied by hand. There were few copies and relatively few people that were literate, but through John Wyclif's early efforts a spiritual reform was begun that could not be turned back. As one historian puts it, "Wyclif's great contribution was the idea of the Bible as the pre-eminent spiritual authority that every man could consult for himself." Barbara W. Tuchman, Bible and Sword (New York: Ballantine Books, 1956), p. 86.
It is to the heart of this spiritual authority that Christian Science relates, affirming that there dwells within each one of us the spiritual sense to understand God and His spiritual creation. And through the understanding and the spiritualization of thought that follow, divine law eventually annihilates all that is unlike God in human consciousness. "Spiritual sense," Mrs. Eddy writes, "is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God." Science and Health, p. 209.
This spiritual capacity dawns in consciousness in many ways. We certainly wake to divine Truth and Love through the healing effect of Christian Science. To grasp the spiritual fact that disease is unreal because unsustained by divine law, to feel the life-giving attraction of purity, unselfed love, and spirituality, is to begin to witness the dawn of primitive Christianity's reestablishment in our own lives. This is the kingdom of God that Christ Jesus said "is within you." Luke 17:21. And on earth this kingdom is inseparable from a spiritual understanding of the Scriptures. This understanding can dawn in habitual, regular study of the Bible itself. This means, of course, actually taking the book in our hands and reading its pages, day after day, and bringing our lives into accord with its spiritual lessons.
One man or one woman with this book in hand, read together with Science and Health, constitutes the most powerful, spiritual revolutionary force on earth. Shall we allow anything to delay this study? Why not begin today? The promised result is spiritual understanding, knowledge of God's presence and power, and the growing realization of what it is to be the healthy, holy child of God. Thus the Word of God is "made flesh" in the lives of men and women today.
