Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📖

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept;

line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there

a little. - ISAIAH.

465:1 THIS chapter is from the first edition of the author’s

class-book, copyrighted in 1870. After much labor 465:3 and increased spiritual understanding, she revised that

treatise for this volume in 1875. Absolute Christian

Science pervades its statements, to elucidate scientific 465:6 metaphysics.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Question. - What is God? 465:9 Answer. - God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite

Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.

Question. - Are these terms synonymous? 465:12 Answer. - They are. They refer to one absolute God.

They are also intended to express the nature, essence, and

wholeness of Deity. The attributes of God are justice, 465:15 mercy, wisdom, goodness, and so on.

Question. - Is there more than one God or Principle?

Answer. - There is not. Principle and its idea is one, 465:18 and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-466:1 present Being, and His reflection is man and the universe.

Omni is adopted from the Latin adjective signifying all. 466:3 Hence God combines all-power or potency, all-science

or true knowledge, all-presence. The varied manifestations of Christian Science indicate Mind, never matter, 466:6 and have one Principle.

Real versus unreal

Question. - What are spirits and souls?

Answer. - To human belief, they are personalities 466:9 constituted of mind and matter, life and death, truth and

error, good and evil; but these contrasting

pairs of terms represent contraries, as Chris-466:12 tian Science reveals, which neither dwell together nor

assimilate. Truth is immortal; error is mortal. Truth

is limitless; error is limited. Truth is intelligent; error 466:15 is non-intelligent. Moreover, Truth is real, and error is

unreal. This last statement contains the point you will

most reluctantly admit, although first and last it is the 466:18 most important to understand.

Mankind redeemed

The term souls or spirits is as improper as the term

gods. Soul or Spirit signifies Deity and nothing else. 466:21 There is no finite soul nor spirit. Soul or

Spirit means only one Mind, and cannot be

rendered in the plural. Heathen mythology and Jewish 466:24 theology have perpetuated the fallacy that intelligence,

soul, and life can be in matter; and idolatry and ritualism

are the outcome of all man-made beliefs. The Science 466:27 of Christianity comes with fan in hand to separate the

chaff from the wheat. Science will declare God aright,

and Christianity will demonstrate this declaration and 466:30 its divine Principle, making mankind better physically,

morally, and spiritually.

Two chief commands

467:1 Question. - What are the demands of the Science of

Soul? 467:3 Answer. - The first demand of this Science is, ” Thou

shalt have no other gods before me.” This me is Spirit.

Therefore the command means this: Thou shalt 467:6 have no intelligence, no life, no substance, no

truth, no love, but that which is spiritual. The second

is like unto it, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” 467:9 It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one

Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love.

Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact 467:12 becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established. Having no other gods,

turning to no other but the one perfect Mind to guide 467:15 him, man is the likeness of God, pure and eternal, having that Mind which was also in Christ.

Soul not confined in body

Science reveals Spirit, Soul, as not in the body, and 467:18 God as not in man but as reflected by man. The greater

cannot be in the lesser. The belief that the

greater can be in the lesser is an error that 467:21 works ill. This is a leading point in the Science of Soul,

that Principle is not in its idea. Spirit, Soul, is not

confined in man, and is never in matter. We reason im-467:24 perfectly from effect to cause, when we conclude that

matter is the effect of Spirit; but a priori reasoning

shows material existence to be enigmatical. Spirit gives 467:27 the true mental idea. We cannot interpret Spirit, Mind,

through matter. Matter neither sees, hears, nor feels.

Sinlessness of Mind, Soul

Reasoning from cause to effect in the Science of Mind, 467:30 we begin with Mind, which must be understood through the idea which expresses it and

cannot be learned from its opposite, matter. Thus we 468:1 arrive at Truth, or intelligence, which evolves its own

unerring idea and never can be coordinate with human 468:3 illusions. If Soul sinned, it would be mortal, for sin is

mortality’s self, because it kills itself. If Truth is immortal, error must be mortal, because error is unlike 468:6 Truth. Because Soul is immortal, Soul cannot sin, for

sin is not the eternal verity of being.

Question. - What is the scientific statement of being? 468:9 Answer. - There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite

manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal 468:12 Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and

eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is

God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore 468:15 man is not material; he is spiritual.

Spiritual synonyms

Question. - What is substance?

Answer. - Substance is that which is eternal and inca-468:18 pable of discord and decay. Truth, Life, and Love are

substance, as the Scriptures use this word in

Hebrews: “The substance of things hoped 468:21 for, the evidence of things not seen.” Spirit, the synonym

of Mind, Soul, or God, is the only real substance. The

spiritual universe, including individual man, is a com-468:24 pound idea, reflecting the divine substance of Spirit.

Eternity of Life

Question. - What is Life?

Answer. - Life is divine Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit. 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 matter. What is termed matter is unknown to Spirit, which 469:3 includes in itself all substance and is Life eternal. Matter 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 God.

True sense of infinitude

469:12 Question. - What is Mind?

Answer. - Mind is God. The exterminator of error

is the great truth that God, good, is the only Mind, and 469:15 that the supposititious 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 God; 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 God is infinite, evil has a

place in this infinity, for evil can have no place, where all 469:24 space is filled with God.

The sole governor

We lose the high signification of omnipotence, when

after admitting that God, 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 God, the whole family of man would

be brethren; and with one Mind and that God, or good, 470:3 the brotherhood of man would consist of Love and Truth,

and have unity of Principle and spiritual power which

constitute divine Science.