Part 5 (1/2)
Let us follow the example of Jesus, the master Metaphysician, and gain sufficient knowledge of error to destroy it with Truth. Evil is not mastered by evil; it can only be overcome with good. This brings out the nothingness of evil and the eternal somethingness, vindicates the divine Principle, and improves the race of Adam.
FOUNDATION-STONES
The following ideas of Deity, antagonized by finite theories, doctrines, and hypotheses, I found to be demonstrable rules in Christian Science, and that we must abide by them.
Whatever diverges from the one divine Mind, or G.o.d,--or divides Mind into minds, Spirit into spirits, Soul into souls, and Being into beings,--is a misstatement of the unerring divine Principle of Science, which interrupts the meaning of the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of Spirit, and is of human instead of divine origin.
War is waged between the evidences of Spirit and the evidences of the five physical senses; and this contest must go on until peace be declared by the final triumph of Spirit in immutable harmony. Divine Science disclaims sin, sickness, and death, on the basis of the omnipotence and omnipresence of G.o.d, or divine good.
All consciousness is Mind, and Mind is G.o.d. Hence there is but one Mind; and that one is the infinite good, supplying all Mind by the reflection, not the subdivision, of G.o.d. Whatever else claims to be mind, or consciousness, is untrue. The sun sends forth light, but not suns; so G.o.d reflects Himself, or Mind, but does not subdivide Mind, or good, into minds, good and evil. Divine Science demands mighty wrestlings with mortal beliefs, as we sail into the eternal haven over the unfathomable sea of possibilities.
Neither ancient nor modern philosophy furnishes a scientific basis for the Science of Mind-healing. Plato believed he had a soul, which must be doctored in order to heal his body. This would be like correcting the principle of music for the purpose of destroying discord. Principle is right; it is practice that is wrong. Soul is right; it is the flesh that is evil. Soul is the synonym of Spirit, G.o.d; hence there is but one Soul, and that one is infinite. If that pagan philosopher had known that physical sense, not Soul, causes all bodily ailments, his philosophy would have yielded to Science.
Man s.h.i.+nes by borrowed light. He reflects G.o.d as his Mind, and this reflection is substance,--the substance of good. Matter is substance in error, Spirit is substance in Truth.
Evil, or error, is not Mind; but infinite Mind is sufficient to supply all manifestations of intelligence. The notion of more than one Mind, or Life, is as unsatisfying as it is unscientific. All must be of G.o.d, and not our own, separated from Him.
Human systems of philosophy and religion are departures from Christian Science. Mistaking divine Principle for corporeal personality, ingrafting upon one First Cause such opposite effects as good and evil, health and sickness, life and death; making mortality the status and rule of divinity,--such methods can never reach the perfection and demonstration of metaphysical, or Christian Science.
Stating the divine Principle, omnipotence (_omnis potens_), and then departing from this statement and taking the rule of finite matter, with which to work out the problem of infinity or Spirit,--all this is like trying to compensate for the absence of omnipotence by a physical, false, and finite subst.i.tute.
With our Master, life was not merely a sense of existence, but an accompanying sense of power that subdued matter and brought to light immortality, insomuch that the people ”were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Life, as defined by Jesus, had no beginning; it was not the result of organization, or infused into matter; it was Spirit.
THE GREAT REVELATION
Christian Science reveals the grand verity, that to believe man has a finite and erring mind, and consequently a mortal mind and soul and life, is error. Scientific terms have no contradictory significations.
In Science, Life is not temporal, but eternal, without beginning or ending.
The word _Life_ never means that which is the source of death, and of good and evil. Such an inference is unscientific. It is like saying that addition means subtraction in one instance and addition in another, and then applying this rule to a demonstration of the science of numbers; even as mortals apply finite terms to G.o.d, in demonstration of infinity. _Life_ is a term used to indicate Deity; and every other name for the Supreme Being, if properly employed, has the signification of Life. Whatever errs is mortal, and is the antipodes of Life, or G.o.d, and of health and holiness, both in idea and demonstration.
Christian Science reveals Mind, the only living and true G.o.d, and all that is made by Him, Mind, as harmonious, immortal, and spiritual: the five material senses define Mind and matter as distinct, but mutually dependent, each on the other, for intelligence and existence. Science defines man as immortal, as coexistent and coeternal with G.o.d, as made in His own image and likeness; material sense defines life as something apart from G.o.d, beginning and ending, and man as very far from the divine likeness. Science reveals Life as a complete sphere, as eternal, self-existent Mind; material sense defines life as a broken sphere, as organized matter, and mind as something separate from G.o.d. Science reveals Spirit as All, averring that there is nothing beside G.o.d; material sense says that matter, His antipode, is something besides G.o.d. Material sense adds that the divine Spirit created matter, and that matter and evil are as real as Spirit and good.
Christian Science reveals G.o.d and His idea as the All and Only. It declares that evil is the absence of good; whereas, good is G.o.d ever-present, and therefore evil is unreal and good is all that is real. Christian Science saith to the wave and storm, ”Be still,” and there is a great calm.
Material sense asks, in its ignorance of Science, ”When will the raging of the material elements cease?” Science saith to all manner of disease, ”Know that G.o.d is all-power and all-presence, and there is nothing beside Him;”
and the sick are healed. Material sense saith, ”Oh, when will my sufferings cease? Where is G.o.d? Sickness is something besides Him, which He cannot, or does not, heal.”
Christian Science is the only sure basis of harmony. Material sense contradicts Science, for matter and its so-called organizations take no cognizance of the spiritual facts of the universe, or of the real man and G.o.d. Christian Science declares that there is but one Truth, Life, Love, but one Spirit, Mind, Soul. Any attempt to divide these arises from the fallibility of sense, from mortal man's ignorance, from enmity to G.o.d and divine Science.
Christian Science declares that sickness is a belief, a latent fear, made manifest on the body in different forms of fear or disease. This fear is formed unconsciously in the silent thought, as when you awaken from sleep and feel ill, experiencing the effect of a fear whose existence you do not realize; but if you fall asleep, actually conscious of the truth of Christian Science,--namely, that man's harmony is no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the universe,--you cannot awake in fear or suffering of any sort.