Part 67 (1/2)
468:27 Life is without beginning and without end.
Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity. One ceases in 468:30 proportion as the other is recognized. Time is finite; 469:1 eternity is forever infinite. Life is neither in nor of mat- ter. What is termed matter is unknown to Spirit, which 469:3 includes in itself all substance and is Life eternal. Mat- ter is a human concept. Life is divine Mind. Life is not limited. Death and finiteness are unknown to Life. If 469:6 Life ever had a beginning, it would also have an ending.
_Question_. - What is intelligence?
_Answer_. - Intelligence is omniscience, omnipresence, 469:9 and omnipotence. It is the primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind, of the triune Principle, - Life, Truth, and Love, - named G.o.d.
True sense of infinitude
469:12 _Question_. - What is Mind?
_Answer_. - Mind is G.o.d. The exterminator of error is the great truth that G.o.d, good, is the _only_ Mind, and 469:15 that the supposit.i.tious opposite of infinite Mind - called _devil_ or evil - is not Mind, is not Truth, but error, without intelligence or reality. There 469:18 can be but one Mind, because there is but one G.o.d; and if mortals claimed no other Mind and accepted no other, sin would be unknown. We can have but one Mind, if 469:21 that one is infinite. We bury the sense of infinitude, when we admit that, although G.o.d is infinite, evil has a place in this infinity, for evil can have no place, where all 469:24 s.p.a.ce is filled with G.o.d.
The sole governor
We lose the high signification of omnipotence, when after admitting that G.o.d, or good, is omnipresent and 469:27 has all-power, we still believe there is another power, named _evil_. This belief that there is more than one mind is as pernicious to divine theology 469:30 as are ancient mythology and pagan idolatry. With 470:1 one Father, even G.o.d, the whole family of man would be brethren; and with one Mind and that G.o.d, or good, 470:3 the brotherhood of man would consist of Love and Truth, and have unity of Principle and spiritual power which const.i.tute divine Science. The supposed existence of 470:6 more than one mind was the basic error of idolatry. This error a.s.sumed the loss of spiritual power, the loss of the spiritual presence of Life as infinite Truth without an 470:9 unlikeness, and the loss of Love as ever present and universal.
The divine standard of perfection
Divine Science explains the abstract statement that 470:12 there is one Mind by the following self-evident propo- sition: If G.o.d, or good, is real, then evil, the unlikeness of G.o.d, is unreal. And evil can 470:15 only seem to be real by giving reality to the unreal. The children of G.o.d have but one Mind. How can good lapse into evil, when G.o.d, the Mind of man, 470:18 never sins? The standard of perfection was originally G.o.d and man. Has G.o.d taken down His own standard, and has man fallen?
Indestructible relations.h.i.+p
470:21 G.o.d is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect. Man is the expression 470:24 of G.o.d's being. If there ever was a moment when man did not express the divine perfec- tion, then there was a moment when man did not express 470:27 G.o.d, and consequently a time when Deity was unex- pressed - that is, without ent.i.ty. If man has lost per- fection, then he has lost his perfect Principle, the divine 470:30 Mind. If man ever existed without this perfect Principle or Mind, then man's existence was a myth.
The relations of G.o.d and man, divine Principle and 471:1 idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine 471:3 order or spiritual law, in which G.o.d and all that He cre- ates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history.
Celestial evidence
471:6 The unlikeness of Truth, - named _error_, - the op- posite of Science, and the evidence before the five cor- poreal senses, afford no indication of the grand 471:9 facts of being; even as these so-called senses receive no intimation of the earth's motions or of the science of astronomy, but yield a.s.sent to astronomical 471:12 propositions on the authority of natural science.
The facts of divine Science should be admitted, - although the evidence as to these facts is not supported 471:15 by evil, by matter, or by material sense, - because the evidence that G.o.d and man coexist is fully sustained by spiritual sense. Man is, and forever has been, G.o.d's re- 471:18 flection. G.o.d is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence. Hence the spirit- uality of the universe is the only fact of creation. ”Let 471:21 G.o.d be true, but every [material] man a liar.”
The test of experience
_Question_. - Are doctrines and creeds a benefit to man?
_Answer_. - The author subscribed to an orthodox 471:24 creed in early youth, and tried to adhere to it until she caught the first gleam of that which inter- prets G.o.d as above mortal sense. This 471:27 view rebuked human beliefs, and gave the spiritual im- port, expressed through Science, of all that proceeds from the divine Mind. Since then her highest creed has 471:30 been divine Science, which, reduced to human apprehen- sion, she has named Christian Science. This Science 472:1 teaches man that G.o.d is the only Life, and that this Life is Truth and Love; that G.o.d is to be understood, adored, 472:3 and demonstrated; that divine Truth casts out supposi- tional error and heals the sick.
G.o.d's law destroys evil
The way which leads to Christian Science is straight 472:6 and narrow. G.o.d has set His signet upon Science, mak- ing it coordinate with all that is real and only with that which is harmonious and eternal.
472:9 Sickness, sin, and death, being inharmonious, do not originate in G.o.d nor belong to His government. His law, rightly understood, destroys them. Jesus furnished 472:12 proofs of these statements.
Evanescent materiality
_Question_. - What is error?
_Answer_. - Error is a supposition that pleasure and 472:15 pain, that intelligence, substance, life, are existent in mat- ter. Error is neither Mind nor one of Mind's faculties. Error is the contradiction of Truth.
472:18 Error is a belief without understanding. Error is unreal because untrue. It is that which seemeth to be and is not.
If error were true, its truth would be error, and we should 472:21 have a self-evident absurdity - namely, _erroneous truth_.
Thus we should continue to lose the standard of Truth.
Unrealities that seem real