Does the passage of time wear out life? Does the individual stand helpless before the so-called ravages of time? These are questions not avoided in the teachings of Christian Science, but dealt with emphatically through spiritual explanation and demonstration.
In the Bible it was said of Moses that in his one hundred and twentieth year, "His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Deut. 34:7. In the early part of this century, a life span of 120 seemed utterly astronomical. But today, think how many individuals there are— and active too—who are beginning to approximate the age of Moses quoted in Deuteronomy.
Longevity has increased steadily over the past hundred years. There are those who attribute this to physiology and hygiene. Yet how persuasive seem descriptive articles and images today, tending to frighten people over a potential shortened life span due to what are portrayed as environmental and personal dangers. Alarms are constantly sounded, in particular, over the food we eat and dangers are outlined that derive from these fears. Indeed, threats and disease seem to lurk around every corner, according to much of the information we receive.
Yet, in spite of at least two decades of alarms, the average life span has continued to extend. There are many factors to be regarded in any reasonable conclusion as to why people today tend to live longer. But those factors ultimately will turn out to be mental, moral, and spiritual—not material or physical. In fact, we'll see that longevity, though undeniably important, cannot be construed as the central goal of individual being— because the goal and center of being is, in reality, eternal Life, God.
Since the advent of Christian Science in the previous century and for virtually the first time since Christ Jesus, mankind has been led to explore, with remarkable healing benefits, the divine verity that God is the only real Life. Individuals learn through Christian Science, and the light it sheds on Bible truths, that God is the infinite All. "There is none else beside him," Deut. 4:35. we read in the Old Testament.
God being Life and God being infinite, there can be no other conclusion reached except that God is the only actual Life. There is no termination, no exclusion, no limitation of the Life which is God. It is through this divine logic that Christian Science exposes death as the ultimate unreality it must be. Death has no part in God, infinite Life, and therefore death can have no real place in man's true, living identity.
The Master, Christ Jesus, said, "For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." John 5:26. And Jesus overcame death as well as all other forms of mortality through his God-founded understanding of the spiritual reality and eternality of the Life divine.
God, being infinite, cannot be subjected to mortal measurements. Neither therefore can Life be circumscribed within such confines as time. The life of God's man is of everlasting duration and is wholly unlimited, since man reflects eternally the Life which is infinite, the All-in-all of being.
We certainly appear to be at the beck and call of time in our daily endeavors. In the routines of living, there seems often to be a shortage of time. Yet time can also wear rather heavy, seeming almost too much in abundance. There is either so little time to catch a plane, to prepare a dinner for guests, make plans for a wedding, or there is the opposite sentiment — "Won't morning ever come?" "Will I ever get to be sixteen?" "When will I get a raise in pay?"
I vividly remember school days when much-dreaded tests were given by a teacher who always seemed to be holding a watch to his face to remind anxious pupils that they had only so much time to finish. Perhaps some thrive under such conditions. But I didn't. Invariably, the anxiety over time limits exceeded my concentration, and the result was all too often manifested in mistakes that I felt would have been avoided under less hurried conditions.
Happily, since opening my thought long ago to a more spiritual and limitless idea of being, after taking up the study of Christian Science, I have been able to put aside those former imposed limitations. There is no longer anxiety or anguish over unexpected demands and assignments. It required a genuine disciplining of thought to disbelieve the notion that good is somehow measured and contained in time and to accept the present fact that all good is because God is that good and He is infinite. But the rewards have been more than worth the effort.
In some of life's more critical times, frequently the argument arises that it's too late for healing, whether in relation to a failing business or over what seems to be failing health. But it isn't inevitable that one succumb to hopelessness—ever. How can it ever really be too late when God's perfect knowing is constant? Divine Mind, God, possesses the answer to every problem, and man can know the solution, for he reflects Mind, Life. We need only to embrace with our whole hearts the true, spiritual facts of being to find access to the healing answers Life already includes.
Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, "To be discouraged, is to resemble a pupil in addition, who attempts to solve a problem of Euclid, and denies the rule of the problem because he fails in his first effort." Science and Health, p. 329. Healing in any instance is dependent on one's obedience to the rudiments of Christianly scientific practice—in particular, never to deny the truth of being, even though one's present understanding of it may be less than complete.
If that sounds impractical, we need only to remember that God, Life, is all-knowing perfection—everywhere, all the time. So even though we might seem deprived of the immediate answer to an urgent need, we can trustingly realize that God has already answered every need and is ever imparting His infinite understanding of present perfection to His creation. The answers are at hand.
As we grow in our recognition of God as the only real Life, we naturally progress in our ability to solve problems—all of which are the direct or indirect result of belief in a mortal sense of life. And the ideas of revealed Truth are as timeless as they are effective in their application to every human need.
Mrs. Eddy deals with the mistaken mortal argument that time has predominant bearing on everything connected with existence when she writes in Science and Health, "Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity." Ibid., p. 468. The finite concept, time, implies a sequence of separations between God and man—of periods when man is one with God, good, and periods when man is alone or angry or sinful, estranged from God. It suggests that man begins and ends—that there is a time when he didn't exist, a series of years when he does exist, and then another point when he will stop existing. But none of this is based on spiritual reality, which shows that God and man are always at one.
Demonstration in Christian Science takes place through a growing understanding of eternity and is not controlled by the human measurement called time. The mortal justification, "This will take time to heal," has no real meaning in Science. What occasions healing in Christian Science is dependent on knowing eternal Truth, realizing the inherent perfection of man and the universe as God's reflection—devoid of the limitations of mortal measurements —while at the same time shutting out of thought any suggestion that good is limited or temporal. If this were not so, there could scarcely be the sometimes startling evidence of instantaneous healings—ever a possibility, when thought comprehends and is committed to the eternal realities of divine Science.
Wherever and whenever human thought presumes something can't be done in terms of healing, or a condition is deemed difficult or even impossible of cure, we can rest in trustful reliance on the God-revealed recognition that God's man is already in possession of his eternal, irreversible status of perfection. This is the reality that God is ever knowing and that man is ever reflecting. And we are more than capable of beginning to prove this perfection and to demonstrate our eternal nature as God's ideas.
