Rudimental Divine Science Part 1

Rudimental Divine Science.

by Mary Baker Eddy.

_How would you define Christian Science?_

As the law of G.o.d, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony.

_What is the Principle of Christian Science?_

It is G.o.d, the Supreme Being, infinite and immortal Mind, the Soul of man and the universe. It is our Father which is in heaven. It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love,--these are the deific Principle.

_Do you mean by this that G.o.d is a person?_

The word _person_ affords a large margin for misapprehension, as well as definition. In French the equivalent word is _personne_. In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it is _persona_. The Latin verb _personare_ is compounded of the prefix _per_ (through) and _sonare_ (to sound).

In law, Blackstone applies the word _personal_ to _bodily presence_, in distinction from one's appearance (in court, for example) by deputy or proxy.

Other definitions of _person_, as given by Webster, are "a living soul; a self-conscious being; a moral agent; especially, a living human being, a corporeal man, woman, or child; an individual of the human race." He adds, that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one of the three subjects, or agents, const.i.tuting the G.o.dhead.

In Christian Science we learn that G.o.d is definitely individual, and not a _person_, as that word is used by the best authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining _person_ as especially a finite _human being_; but G.o.d is personal, if by _person_ is meant infinite Spirit.

We do not conceive rightly of G.o.d, if we think of Him as less than infinite. The human person is finite; and therefore I prefer to retain the proper sense of Deity by using the phrase _an individual_ G.o.d, rather than _a personal_ G.o.d; for there is and can be but one infinite individual Spirit, whom mortals have named G.o.d.

Science defines the individuality of G.o.d as supreme good, Life, Truth, Love. This term enlarges our sense of Deity, takes away the trammels a.s.signed to G.o.d by finite thought, and introduces us to higher definitions.

_Is healing the sick the whole of Science?_

Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin; and this task, sometimes, may be harder than the cure of disease; because, while mortals love to sin, they do not love to be sick. Hence their comparative acquiescence in your endeavors to heal them of bodily ills, and their obstinate resistance to all efforts to save them from sin through Christ, spiritual Truth and Love, which redeem them, and become their Saviour, through the flesh, from the flesh,--the material world and evil.

This Life, Truth, and Love--this trinity of good--was individualized, to the perception of mortal sense, in the man Jesus. His history is emphatic in our hearts, and it lives more because of his spiritual than his physical healing. His example is, to Christian Scientists, what the models of the masters in music and painting are to artists.

Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate morally from that divine digest of Science called the Sermon on the Mount, than they will manipulate invalids, prescribe drugs, or deny G.o.d. Jesus' healing was spiritual in its nature, method, and design. He wrought the cure of disease through the divine Mind, which gives all true volition, impulse, and action; and destroys the mental error made manifest physically, and establishes the opposite manifestation of Truth upon the body in harmony and health.

_By the individuality of G.o.d, do you mean that G.o.d has a finite form?_

No. I mean the infinite and divine Principle of all being, the ever-present I AM, filling all s.p.a.ce, including in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother G.o.d. Life, Truth, and Love are this trinity in unity, and their universe is spiritual, peopled with perfect beings, harmonious and eternal, of which our material universe and men are the counterfeits.

_Is G.o.d the Principle of all science, or only of Divine or Christian Science?_

Science is Mind manifested. It is not material; neither is it of human origin.

All true Science represents a moral and spiritual force, which holds the earth in its...o...b..t. This force is Spirit, that can "bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades," and "loose the bands of Orion."

There is no material science, if by that term you mean material intelligence. G.o.d is infinite Mind, hence there is no other Mind.

Good is Mind, but evil is not Mind. Good is not in evil, but in G.o.d only. Spirit is not in matter, but in Spirit only. Law is not in matter, but in Mind only.

_Is there no matter?_

All is Mind. According to the Scriptures and Christian Science, all is G.o.d, and there is naught beside Him. "G.o.d is Spirit;" and we can only learn and love Him through His spirit, which brings out the fruits of Spirit and extinguishes forever the works of darkness by His marvellous light.

The five material senses testify to the existence of matter. The spiritual senses afford no such evidence, but deny the testimony of the material senses. Which testimony is correct? The Bible says: "Let G.o.d be true, and every man a liar." If, as the Scriptures imply, G.o.d is All-in-all, then all must be Mind, since G.o.d is Mind. Therefore in divine Science there is no material mortal man, for man is spiritual and eternal, he being made in the image of Spirit, or G.o.d.

There is no material sense. Matter is inert, inanimate, and sensationless,--considered apart from Mind. Lives there a man who has ever found Soul in the body or in matter, who has ever seen spiritual substance with the eye, who has found sight in matter, hearing in the material ear, or intelligence in non-intelligence?

If there is any such thing as matter, it must be either mind which is called matter, or matter without Mind.

Matter without Mind is a moral impossibility. Mind in matter is pantheism.

Soul is the only real consciousness which cognizes being. The body does not see, hear, smell, or taste. Human belief says that it does; but destroy this belief of seeing with the eye, and we could not see materially; and so it is with each of the physical senses.

Accepting the verdict of these material senses, we should believe man and the universe to be the football of chance and sinking into oblivion.

Destroy the five senses as organized matter, and you must either become non-existent, or exist in Mind only; and this latter conclusion is the simple solution of the problem of being, and leads to the equal inference that there is no matter.

_The sweet sounds and glories of earth and sky, a.s.suming manifold forms and colors,--are they not tangible and material?_

As Mind they are real, but not as matter. All beauty and goodness are in and of Mind, emanating from G.o.d; but when we change the nature of beauty and goodness from Mind to matter, the beauty is marred, through a false conception, and, to the material senses, evil takes the place of good.

Has not the truth in Christian Science met a response from Prof.

S.P. Langley, the young American astronomer? He says that "color is in _us_," not "in the rose;" and he adds that this is not "any metaphysical subtlety," but a fact "almost universally accepted, within the _last few years_, by physicists."

_Is not the basis of Mind-healing a destruction of the evidence of the material senses, and restoration of the true evidence of spiritual sense?_

It is, so far as you perceive and understand this predicate and postulate of Mind-healing; but the Science of Mind-healing is best understood in practical demonstration. The proof of what you apprehend, in the simplest definite and absolute form of healing, can alone answer this question of how much you understand of Christian Science Mind-healing. Not that all healing is Science, by any means; but that the simplest case, healed in Science, is as demonstrably scientific, in a small degree, as the most difficult case so treated.

The infinite and subtler conceptions and consistencies of Christian Science are set forth in my work Science and Health.

_Is man material or spiritual?_

In Science, man is the manifest reflection of G.o.d, perfect and immortal Mind. He is the likeness of G.o.d; and His likeness would be lost if inverted or perverted.

According to the evidence of the so-called physical senses, man is material, fallen, sick, depraved, mortal. Science and spiritual sense contradict this, and they afford the only true evidence of the being of G.o.d and man, the material evidence being wholly false.

Jesus said of personal evil, that "the truth abode not in him," because there is no material sense. Matter, as matter, has neither sensation nor personal intelligence. As a pretension to be Mind, matter is a lie, and "the father of lies;" Mind is not in matter, and Spirit cannot originate its opposite, named matter.

According to divine Science, Spirit no more changes its species, by evolving matter from Spirit, than natural science, so-called, or material laws, bring about alteration of species by transforming minerals into vegetables or plants into animals,--thus confusing and confounding the three great kingdoms. No rock brings forth an apple; no pine-tree produces a mammal or provides breast-milk for babes.

To sense, the lion of to-day is the lion of six thousand years ago; but in Science, Spirit sends forth its own harmless likeness.

_How should I undertake to demonstrate Christian Science in healing the sick?_