“The scientific statement of being”—Mary Baker Eddy’s resounding affirmation of the allness of Spirit and the nothingness of matter—is the most revolutionary paragraph ever penned by the hand of man.
The six-sentence, 62-word declaration, authored by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science (see Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 468), contains the very pith or essence of Christian Science, the twin premises from which the entire theology of Christian Science issues forth. As history indicates, the statement was not written capriciously nor without a due appreciation on Mrs. Eddy’s part of the response it would almost certainly command from a world steeped in the scientific materialism of the age, predicated on the perceived incompatibility of religion and science (see Science and Health, p. 268).
As one of Mrs. Eddy’s students recounts, she was aware of the profound implications of what she was writing and the extent to which this radical statement would fly in the face of everything that seemed so apparent and logical to human sense—even, initially, her own.
