Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 45

As G.o.d is substance and man is the divine image and 301:18 likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only the substance of good, the substance of Spirit, not matter. The belief that man has any other 301:21 substance, or mind, is not spiritual and breaks the First Commandment, Thou shalt have one G.o.d, one Mind. Mortal man seems to himself to be material sub- 301:24 stance, while man is "image" (idea). Delusion, sin, dis- ease, and death arise from the false testimony of material sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the 301:27 focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image of Mind and substance with everything turned upside down.

301:30 This falsity presupposes soul to be an unsubstantial dweller in material forms, and man to be material instead of spiritual. Immortality is not bounded by mortality.

302:1 Soul is not compa.s.sed by finiteness. Principle is not to be found in fragmentary ideas.

Ident.i.ty not lost

302:3 The material body and mind are temporal, but the real man is spiritual and eternal. The ident.i.ty of the real man is not lost, but found through this 302:6 explanation; for the conscious infinitude of existence and of all ident.i.ty is thereby discerned and re- mains unchanged. It is impossible that man should lose 302:9 aught that is real, when G.o.d is all and eternally his. The notion that mind is in matter, and that the so-called pleas- ures and pains, the birth, sin, sickness, and death of 302:12 matter, are real, is a mortal belief; and this belief is all that will ever be lost.

Definition of man

Continuing our definition of _man_, let us remember that 302:15 harmonious and immortal man has existed forever, and is always beyond and above the mortal illu- sion of any life, substance and intelligence 302:18 as existent in matter. This statement is based on fact, not fable. The Science of being reveals man as perfect, even as the Father is perfect, because the Soul, or Mind, 302:21 of the spiritual man is G.o.d, the divine Principle of all being, and because this real man is governed by Soul instead of sense, by the law of Spirit, not by the so-called 302:24 laws of matter.

G.o.d is Love. He is therefore the divine, infinite Prin- ciple, called Person or G.o.d. Man's true consciousness 302:27 is in the mental, not in any bodily or personal likeness to Spirit. Indeed, the body presents no proper likeness of divinity, though mortal sense would fain have us so 302:30 believe.

Mental propagation

Even in Christian Science, reproduction by Spirit's individual ideas is but the reflection of the creative power 303:1 of the divine Principle of those ideas. The reflection, through mental manifestation, of the mult.i.tudinous 303:3 forms of Mind which people the realm of the real is controlled by Mind, the Principle governing the reflection. Multiplication of G.o.d's chil- 303:6 dren comes from no power of propagation in matter, it is the reflection of Spirit.

The minutiae of lesser individualities reflect the one di- 303:9 vine individuality and are comprehended in and formed by Spirit, not by material sensation. Whatever reflects Mind, Life, Truth, and Love, is spiritually conceived and 303:12 brought forth; but the statement that man is conceived and evolved both spiritually and materially, or by both G.o.d and man, contradicts this eternal truth. All the 303:15 vanity of the ages can never make both these contraries true. Divine Science lays the axe at the root of the illu- sion that life, or mind, is formed by or is in the material 303:18 body, and Science will eventually destroy this illusion through the self-destruction of all error and the beatified understanding of the Science of Life.

Error defined

303:21 The belief that pain and pleasure, life and death, holi- ness and unholiness, mingle in man, - that mortal, material man is the likeness of G.o.d 303:24 and is himself a creator, - is a fatal error.

Man's ent.i.ty spiritual

G.o.d, without the image and likeness of Himself, would be a nonent.i.ty, or Mind unexpressed. He would be 303:27 without a witness or proof of His own na- ture. Spiritual man is the image or idea of G.o.d, an idea which cannot be lost nor sep- 303:30 arated from its divine Principle. When the evidence before the material senses yielded to spiritual sense, the apostle declared that nothing could alienate him from 304:1 G.o.d, from the sweet sense and presence of Life and Truth.

Man inseparable from Love

304:3 It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and good- ness. Understanding this, Paul said: "Nei- 304:6 ther death, nor life, ... nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from 304:9 the love of G.o.d." This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into 304:12 sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death. The perfect man - governed 304:15 by G.o.d, his perfect Principle - is sinless and eternal.

Harmony natural

Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life 304:18 of man. Man's happiness is not, therefore, at the disposal of physical sense. Truth is not contaminated by error. Harmony in man is as beautiful 304:21 as in music, and discord is unnatural, unreal.

The science of music governs tones. If mortals caught harmony through material sense, they would lose har- 304:24 mony, if time or accident robbed them of material sense.

To be master of chords and discords, the science of music must be understood. Left to the decisions 304:27 of material sense, music is liable to be misappre- hended and lost in confusion. Controlled by belief, instead of understanding, music is, must be, imper- 304:30 fectly expressed. So man, not understanding the Sci- ence of being, - thrusting aside his divine Principle as incomprehensible, - is abandoned to conjectures, left in 305:1 the hands of ignorance, placed at the disposal of illusions, subjected to material sense which is discord. A discon- 305:3 tented, discordant mortal is no more a _man_ than discord is music.

Human reflection

A picture in the camera or a face reflected in the mirror 305:6 is not the original, though resembling it. Man, in the likeness of his Maker, reflects the central light of being, the invisible G.o.d. As there is no cor- 305:9 poreality in the mirrored form, which is but a reflection, so man, like all things real, reflects G.o.d, his divine Prin- ciple, not in a mortal body.

305:12 Gender also is a quality, not of G.o.d, but a character- istic of mortal mind. The verity that G.o.d's image is not a creator, though he reflects the creation of Mind, G.o.d, 305:15 const.i.tutes the underlying reality of reflection. "Then answered Jesus and said unto them: Verily, verily I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he 305:18 seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise."

Inverted images

The inverted images presented by the senses, the de- 305:21 flections of matter as opposed to the Science of spirit- ual reflection, are all unlike Spirit, G.o.d. In the illusion of life that is here to-day and 305:24 gone to-morrow, man would be wholly mortal, were it not that Love, the divine Principle that obtains in divine Science, destroys all error and brings immor- 305:27 tality to light. Because man is the reflection of his Maker, he is not subject to birth, growth, maturity, de- cay. These mortal dreams are of human origin, not 305:30 divine.

Jewish traditions

The Sadducees reasoned falsely about the resurrec- tion, but not so blindly as the Pharisees, who believed 306:1 error to be as immortal as Truth. The Pharisees thought that they could raise the spiritual from the material. They 306:3 would first make life result in death, and then resort to death to reproduce spiritual life.

Jesus taught them how death was to be overcome by 306:6 spiritual Life, and demonstrated this beyond cavil.

Divinity not childless

Life demonstrates Life. The immortality of Soul makes man immortal. If G.o.d, who is Life, were parted for a 306:9 moment from His reflection, man, during that moment there would be no divinity reflected.

The Ego would be unexpressed, and the Father would be 306:12 childless, - no Father.

If Life or Soul and its representative, man, unite for a period and then are separated as by a law of divorce to 306:15 be brought together again at some uncertain future time and in a manner unknown, - and this is the general religious opinion of mankind, - we are left without a 306:18 rational proof of immortality. But man cannot be sep- arated for an instant from G.o.d, if man reflects G.o.d.

Thus Science proves man's existence to be intact.

Thought-forms

306:21 The myriad forms of mortal thought, made manifest as matter, are not more distinct nor real to the mate- rial senses than are the Soul-created forms 306:24 to spiritual sense, which cognizes Life as per- manent. Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding 306:27 to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle, - is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and eternal.

306:30 G.o.d's man, spiritually created, is not material and mortal.

The serpent's whisper

The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, 307:1 the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and pa.s.sed into matter.

307:3 This pantheistic error, or so-called _serpent_, in- sists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying, "Ye shall be as G.o.ds;" that is, I will make error as real 307:6 and eternal as Truth.

Evil still affirms itself to be mind, and declares that there is more than one intelligence or G.o.d. It says: 307:9 "There shall be lords and G.o.ds many. I declare that G.o.d makes evil minds and evil spirits, and that I aid Him.

Truth shall change sides and be unlike Spirit. I will 307:12 put spirit into what I call matter, and matter shall seem to have life as much as G.o.d, Spirit, who _is_ the only life."

Bad results from error

This error has proved itself to be error. Its life is found 307:15 to be not Life, but only a transient, false sense of an ex- istence which ends in death. Error charges its lie to Truth and says: "The Lord knows 307:18 it. He has made man mortal and material, out of mat- ter instead of Spirit." Thus error partakes of its own nature and utters its own falsities. If we regard matter 307:21 as intelligent, and Mind as both good and evil, every sin or supposed material pain and pleasure seems normal, a part of G.o.d's creation, and so weighs against our course 307:24 Spiritward.

Higher statutes

Truth has no beginning. The divine Mind is the Soul of man, and gives man dominion over all things. Man 307:27 was not created from a material basis, nor bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher 307:30 law of Mind.

The great question

Above error's awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice of Truth still calls: "Adam, where art thou? Conscious- 308:1 ness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou 308:3 in the living faith that there is and can be but one G.o.d, and keeping His commandment?"

Until the lesson is learned that G.o.d is the only Mind gov- 308:6 erning man, mortal belief will be afraid as it was in the beginning, and will hide from the demand, "Where art thou?" This awful demand, "Adam, where art thou?"

308:9 is met by the admission from the head, heart, stomach, blood, nerves, etc.: "Lo, here I am, looking for happiness and life in the body, but finding only an illusion, a blend- 308:12 ing of false claims, false pleasure, pain, sin, sickness, and death."

The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth, 308:15 and talked with G.o.d as consciously as man talks with man.

Wrestling of Jacob

Jacob was _alone_, wrestling with error, - struggling with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence 308:18 as existent in matter with its false pleasures and pains, - when an angel, a message from Truth and Love, appeared to him and smote the sinew, 308:21 or strength, of his error, till he saw its unreality; and Truth, being thereby understood, gave him spiritual strength in this Peniel of divine Science. Then said 308:24 the spiritual evangel: "Let me go, for the day breaketh;"

that is, the light of Truth and Love dawns upon thee.

But the patriarch, perceiving his error and his need 308:27 of help, did not loosen his hold upon this glorious light until his nature was transformed. When Jacob was asked, "What is thy name?" he straightway answered; 308:30 and then his name was changed to Israel, for "as a prince"

had he prevailed and had "power with G.o.d and with men." Then Jacob questioned his deliverer, "Tell me, 309:1 I pray thee, _thy_ name;" but this appellation was withheld, for the messenger was not a corporeal being, but a name- 309:3 less, incorporeal impartation of divine Love to man, which, to use the word of the Psalmist, _restored _his Soul, - gave him the spiritual sense of being and rebuked his material 309:6 sense.