The attitude of a Christian Scientist is that of a lifelong student. It's natural, then, that there's a place in his or her daily study and spiritual progress for thoughtful research. Christian Scientists may draw on nondenominational Bible commentaries and dictionaries, different versions of the Bible, as well as historical information that sheds light on events in the Bible.
But completely separate and distinct from the use of various research materials, which Christian Scientists know they should sift through prayerfully, is the vital need to study the pure metaphysical teachings of Christian Science. This includes studying the weekly Bible Lessons taken from the Bible itself and from Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, and exploring the Bible as well as all of Mrs. Eddy's writings more fully. These are the most relevant to Christian Scientists, who understand divine Science to be the Comforter promised by Christ Jesus. The Master said, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now."1 Also "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth."2
Mrs. Eddy's inestimable discovery was the timeless Science of being—the Science of divine Principle, Life, Truth, and Love, made evident to her by God through deep prayerful study of the Bible. She referred to this prophesied coming of the Christ Science as the "... final revelation of the absolute divine Principle of scientific mental healing."3
She explains a little further on, "I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration."4
One of the most vital things for the student of Christian Science to realize is that he's not dealing with a human philosophy or even a religion based on a set of inspired, humanly derived ideas. Christian Science reveals to humanity the Principle that is God; it is the appearing of divine Science—expressed in fixed laws. The slightest deviation from its rule would prevent its demonstration, in the same way that an adulteration of the principle of mathematics would make impossible the solving of equations.
For this reason, Mrs. Eddy spent many years searching for just the right terminology to express the Science of being as it had been revealed to her. She saw herself as a little child, who, though she can see clearly the world around her and is sure of its existence, still needs to go through the process of learning to describe what she sees in words. (See Science and Health ix:3–19.)
Through progressive attempts to teach her divine discovery to pupil after pupil, she was finally guided to express it in the terminology which was most clear to human thinking and which, through experience, she found to be least apt to give misconceptions of its exact Science. Thus she felt her original divine revelation can be best learned from studying her last revision of Science and Health.
Mrs. Eddy writes: "Posterity will have the right to demand that Christian Science be stated and demonstrated in its godliness and grandeur,—that however little be taught or learned, that little shall be right. Let there be milk for babes, but let not the milk be adulterated. Unless this method be pursued, the Science of Christian healing will again be lost, and human suffering will increase."5
No student of Christian Science will ever be able to express its truths with more exactness or clarity than its original Discoverer and Founder. Why? Because as we begin to discern and demonstrate impersonal Truth from the same inspired basis that Mrs. Eddy did, we will necessarily be led to the same precise terminology to which Christ, Truth, led her. To try to reinterpret Mrs. Eddy's God-given explanations or change her statement would inevitably prove to be a hindrance to our own and others' spiritual progress. We need spiritual discipline in learning to demonstrate Christian Science and in expressing what that demonstration has meant to us. Yet once that discipline is mastered, the student of Christian Science gains enormous freedom and spontaneity in practice and expression.
We may feel we know this; but we must take into account that so-called mortal mind (the universal belief in an intelligence other than divine Mind) can be very subtle in eroding the necessary discipline and may come to us in disguises we don't recognize if we're not alert.
At a time when I was praying for a very ill relative, I reached out to the Father with my whole heart and received the most vivid, tangible realization of divine Truth and Love I had ever known. It was such a precious experience—and the resulting healing so impressive—that no combination of words I'd ever heard before seemed adequate to describe the oneness with God that I had felt, and seen for my loved one.
One of the most vital things for the student of Christian Science to realize is that he's not dealing with a human philosophy or even a religion based on a set of inspired, humanly derived ideas.
Longing to share what I had seen in that beautiful healing, I included it in an article I wrote for this periodical. However, instead of wording the special realization in a careful, prayed-through terminology that was absolutely consistent with the teachings of Christ Jesus, or Science and Health, I let mortal reasoning dupe me into attempting to phrase the particular new-old spiritual fact in a somewhat different way—in hopes that it might jog the reader into seeing the oneness of God and man more clearly.
Well, the article was published; but first, with my permission, that particular phrase was changed into words that the Editors lovingly explained would be less apt to misrepresent the teachings of Christian Science. And, at the same time, the revised wording actually represented more exactly the original substance of the healing inspiration I had gained.
I could certainly see their point; but the point I didn't get was that not only would the "public" likely be led off base by my rearranging the inspired wording of Mrs. Eddy's explanation of man—but that I might too! So over several years, at the same time that I was carefully using what Science and Health reveals of man's relationship to God when communicating with others, I went right on holding my little pet phrase in thought and reasoning out from it.
The lesson I ended up learning the hard way was that while a personal phrasing of a divine concept may seem entirely harmless in its first stages, the slightest deviation from exactness can cause problems later on—even years later—as the line of reasoning gradually develops.
My way of wording the spiritual concept in question was off base just enough in the impression it gave me, that my unintentional deviation had compounded itself into a problematic blurring of the distinction between divine cause and its effect, between God and man. As the problem area was uncovered to me, I felt the need to backtrack meekly, drop off any tendency to interpret Science personally, and start afresh with the deepest gratitude for Mrs. Eddy's years and years of dedicated effort to state the spiritual facts she saw in metaphysical terminology that is unmistakably clear and exact and will hold true to divine logic from first to last.
The responsibility to disseminate this saving truth to mankind is so great, and the Science so vast, that each of us constantly needs to be diligent in striving to express the truth in a way that would not be misunderstood or misrepresent some essential teaching of Christian Science. For this reason, in publishing the Christian Science periodicals, more than one Editor checks over each manuscript before it's published, and the Editors prayerfully edit one another's writing.
This certainly doesn't mean we should merely parrot Mrs. Eddy. We should write and speak from divine inspiration and our own individual experience and growth. What we say should be fresh, engaging, contemporary. Yet we should hold in thought that, when sharing an inspired explanation of divine Science, we are simply opening up particular spiritual truths that we have proved; we are not engaging in any personal embellishment of Mrs. Eddy's writings or developing "new" metaphysics.
In fulfillment of prophecy, divine Science, the Comforter, is come. Its purpose: to relieve the injustices of material sense by correcting the false premises about God and His man that ignorantly manifest themselves in suffering and sin. Christian Science is whole, complete, and final. Christ Jesus—the very embodiment of Christ—has already proved it in practical demonstration, revealing the divine Father whose nature is omnipresent Love and whose power is ever maintaining the health and joy of His beloved children. Mrs. Eddy discovered the Science of divine Love and was the inspired scribe who recorded Science in its completeness in her writings. Now, our work is to demonstrate fully divine Truth and Love. This can be successfully done in proportion to our meticulous preservation of the purity and practice of the teachings of Christian Science.
