As a classroom teacher of writing, I am expected to inculcate in my students habits of critical thinking. The questions I pose to them often lead to deep philosophical discussions on any number of subjects. One of the topics we’ve occasionally discussed, which has profound metaphysical implications, is the mutability of material objects versus the indestructibility of ideas.
I’ve turned to numbers to illustrate the point. I write the numeral “2” on the chalkboard, adding that I then propose to destroy “2.” I erase it, thereby destroying it. “But have I really destroyed it?” I ask. Then I write the same numeral again, again erasing it. Two stick figures follow, erased; two trees, gone. “What’s the point?” I ask, rhetorically. “If a bus should catch fire and be destroyed, is that the end of buses? Or do we not build another bus using a plan and design? If the wooden street number attached to your house appears weather-worn or has chipped paint, does that mean its original idea has aged or become impaired? Can ideas ever be destroyed, deformed, or modified?”
This is perhaps a simple point, and yet—in a far deeper, more spiritual sense—is this not what Christ Jesus was getting at when he depicted the indestructibility of his own individuality? “Destroy this temple,” he said, “and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). He was referring to his crucifixion and resurrection, the resurrection of his human body. This supreme demonstration over death showed not only Jesus’ own immortality but also the immortal being and life of every woman, man, and child. Each one of us, as the image or idea of God, is as eternally unerasable as our Parent, or Maker, God.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, uses a mathematical illustration in her writings, similar to the one I use in my class, to make a metaphysical point. She writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Erase the figures which express number, silence the tones of music, give to the worms the body called man, and yet the producing, governing, divine Principle lives on,—in the case of man as truly as in the case of numbers and of music,—despite the so-called laws of matter, which define man as mortal” (p. 81).
While you and I seem to be material mortals, we are actually immortal, spiritual ideas—the fully realized image of Spirit, God. To think of ourselves as purely ideas, however, may give the impression that we are evanescent, imperceptible, fleeting; but because God, divine Mind, is intelligence itself, His ideas (including you and me) are permanent, tangible, harmonious, and perfect, like God.
We each are an idea of God, without any element of materiality or destructibility. We are unerasable, spiritual, eternal, cherished by God.
Spirit, God, is actual substance, not matter. The word substance comes from two Latin words: sub, meaning “under,” and stare, meaning “to stand.” This imports that Spirit, God, is the supporting and preserving power of all that is real—the Life, health, and joy of each and every spiritual idea. Since each of us is an idea—an individual, spiritual expression, held forever intact by the grace of God, Soul—we are always indestructible and whole.
So, if we are ideas, how should we regard the material human form we see and identify with constantly? This material human form is the unreal, illusive opposite of our spiritual nature as an idea of God. And God’s ideas cannot be diminished, distorted, or destroyed. Any material supposition about any of His ideas simply isn’t real.
“God creates all forms of reality,” Mrs. Eddy writes. “His thoughts are spiritual realities. So-called mortal mind—being non-existent and consequently not within the range of immortal existence—could not by simulating deific power invert the divine creation, and afterwards recreate persons or things upon its own plane, since nothing exists beyond the range of all-inclusive infinity, in which and of which God is the sole creator” (Science and Health, pp. 513–514).
The material human form is the opposite of our real spiritual identity. The writer of Deuteronomy grasped something of this opposing nature of materiality centuries ago: “See, I [God] have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; … I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (30:15, 19). Healing comes as we choose, or recognize, spiritual life and what’s real about our God-given selfhood, that we may demonstrate true life.
Such “choosing,” in fact, is at the foundation of Christian healing. The effect of recognizing our sonship and daughtership as children, or ideas, of God is often rapid healing—as well as a reliable preventive that forestalls discord in the first place.
Acknowledging the spiritual truth of each of us as eternal ideas of God, corrects, sustains, and heals us. As Science and Health states, “So sin and sorrow, disease and death, are the suppositional absence of Life, God, and flee as phantoms of error before truth and love” (p. 215).
While I was in the midst of writing this very article, at the base of both my thumbs large protrusions suddenly appeared—literally in one day. The bumps did not hurt, but they were prominent disfigurations that embarrassed me. They persisted for months. During that time I kept thinking of the numbers example already illustrated, and strove to see myself as a spiritual idea that could not be altered by any kind of defacement. Since God alone is causative, I reasoned, these deformations are not real.
I stopped looking at the bumps entirely, until one day, shortly after digging in like this in prayer, I happened to glance at my hands and found them smooth once again. The healing seemed right in line with this prediction in Science and Health: “The time approaches when mortal mind will forsake its corporeal, structural, and material basis, when immortal Mind and its formations will be apprehended in Science, and material beliefs will not interfere with spiritual facts” (p. 402).
We each are an idea of God, without any element of materiality or destructibility. We are unerasable, spiritual, eternal, cherished by God. To accept such a heritage is truly exalting and brings an unsurpassed joy.
Through healing ourselves and others, through loving more richly and on a spiritual basis, through adoring God, divine Principle, for what He is (and for the present and permanent harmony that He lovingly bestows on all), our awakening out of material unreality into spiritual reality is assured, because our real being right now and always exists in eternity and can never be erased or effaced.
