Part 3 (1/2)
Spirit never sins, because Spirit is G.o.d. Hence, as Spirit, Soul is sinless, and is G.o.d. Therefore there is, there can be, no spiritual death.
Transcending the evidence of the material senses, Science declares G.o.d to be the Soul of all being, the only Mind and intelligence in the universe.
There is but one G.o.d, one Soul, or Mind, and that one is infinite, supplying all that is absolutely immutable and eternal,--Truth, Life, Love.
Science reveals Soul as that which the senses cannot define from any standpoint of their own. What the physical senses miscall soul, Christian Science defines as material sense; and herein lies the discrepancy between the true Science of Soul and that material sense of a soul which that very sense declares can never be seen or measured or weighed or touched by physicality.
Often we can elucidate the deep meaning of the Scriptures by reading _sense_ instead of _soul_, as in the Forty-second Psalm: ”Why art thou cast down, O my soul [sense]?... Hope thou in G.o.d [Soul]: for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my G.o.d [my Soul, immortality].”
The Virgin-mother's sense being uplifted to behold Spirit as the sole origin of man, she exclaimed, ”My soul [spiritual sense] doth magnify the Lord.”
Human language constantly uses the word _soul_ for _sense_. This it does under the delusion that the senses can reverse the spiritual facts of Science, whereas Science reverses the testimony of the material senses.
Soul is Life, and being spiritual Life, never sins. Material sense is the so-called material life. Hence this lower sense sins and suffers, according to material belief, till divine understanding takes away this belief and restores Soul, or spiritual Life. ”He restoreth my soul,” says David.
In his first epistle to the Corinthians (xv. 45) Paul writes: ”The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” The apostle refers to the second Adam as the Messiah, our blessed Master, whose interpretation of G.o.d and His creation--by restoring the spiritual sense of man as immortal instead of mortal--made humanity victorious over death and the grave.
When I discovered the power of Spirit to break the cords of matter, through a change in the mortal sense of things, then I discerned the last Adam as a quickening Spirit, and understood the meaning of the declaration of Holy Writ, ”The first shall be last,”--the living Soul shall be found a quickening Spirit; or, rather, shall reflect the Life of the divine Arbiter.
There is no Matter
”G.o.d is a Spirit” (or, more accurately translated, ”G.o.d is Spirit”), declares the Scripture (John iv. 24), ”and they that wors.h.i.+p Him must wors.h.i.+p Him in spirit and in truth.”
If G.o.d is Spirit, and G.o.d is All, surely there can be no matter; for the divine All must be Spirit.
The tendency of Christianity is to spiritualize thought and action. The demonstrations of Jesus annulled the claims of matter, and overruled laws material as emphatically as they annihilated sin.
According to Christian Science, the _first_ idolatrous claim of sin is, that matter exists; the _second_, that matter is substance; the _third_, that matter has intelligence; and the _fourth_, that matter, being so endowed, produces life and death.
Hence my conscientious position, in the denial of matter, rests on the fact that matter usurps the authority of G.o.d, Spirit; and the nature and character of matter, the antipode of Spirit, include all that denies and defies Spirit, in quant.i.ty or quality.
This subject can be enlarged. It can be shown, in detail, that evil does not obtain in Spirit, G.o.d; and that G.o.d, or good, is Spirit alone; whereas, evil _does_, according to belief, obtain in matter; and that evil is a false claim,--false to G.o.d, false to Truth and Life. Hence the claim of matter usurps the prerogative of G.o.d, saying, ”I am a creator. G.o.d made me, and I make man and the material universe.”
Spirit is the only creator, and man, including the universe, is His spiritual concept. By matter is commonly meant mind,--not the highest Mind, but a false form of mind. This so-called mind and matter cannot be separated in origin and action.
What is this mind? It is not the Mind of Spirit; for spiritualization of thought destroys all sense of matter as substance, Life, or intelligence, and enthrones G.o.d in the eternal qualities of His being.
This lower, misnamed mind is a false claim, a suppositional mind, which I prefer to call _mortal mind_. True Mind is immortal. This mortal mind declares itself material, in sin, sickness, and death, virtually saying, ”I am the opposite of Spirit, of holiness, harmony, and Life.”
To this declaration Christian Science responds, even as did our Master: ”You were a murderer from the beginning. The truth abode not in you. You are a liar, and the father of it.” Here it appears that a _liar_ was in the neuter gender,--neither masculine nor feminine. Hence it was not man (the image of G.o.d) who lied, but the false claim to personality, which I call _mortal mind_; a claim which Christian Science uncovers, in order to demonstrate the falsity of the claim.
There are lesser arguments which prove matter to be identical with mortal mind, and this mind a lie.
The physical senses (matter really having no sense) give the only pretended testimony there can be as to the existence of a substance called _matter_.
Now these senses, being material, can only testify from their own evidence, and concerning themselves; yet we have it on divine authority: ”If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” (John v. 31.)