Editorial June 25, 1921 Issue

Redemption

Gustavus S. Paine

SUPPOSITIONAL mortal consciousness, which psychologists and other people have believed to be mind or a phase of mind, capable of lapses into unconsciousness or semi-consciousness, and divisible into parts, one of which has been called subconsciousness, is not true Mind. Strictly speaking, it has none of the qualities of real consciousness, but is a mere hypothesis, supposing itself able to substitute itself for the divine reality. Yet that it should even seem to be shows that there must be the reality which it claims to imitate. In other words, true consciousness must exist, must be the one provable entity, quite apart from the evidence of the senses, and must continue to exist throughout all eternity. Spiritual consciousness is indestructible, because it includes no element of destruction, and because there is no power outside of it that could really even attack it.

The hypothesis of mortal consciousness and mortal living generally can be improved, then, only as it gives way to the indestructible and unlimited reality of being. Christian Science is to-day bringing to humanity the truly evangelical good news that mortality, with all its discords and limitations, can indeed give way to the true Mind and its omnipresent manifestation. Thus is the thought of mortals uplifted from the materialistic beliefs which they have found so unsatisfying, and turned to the real Life which is infinite with spiritual variety. The only redemption for mortality lies in the complete replacement of it with immortality, for no lingering trace of mere human belief can endure in the presence of the truth.

Human consciousness, with all its beliefs in suppression, depression, and repression, must be replaced by Truth fully expressed. As this vanishing of evil because of the unfoldment of good goes on, it is demonstrated that there is in reality now and always but the one real Mind, the divine Mind manifest as idea, and that this one never has been diminished, reversed, or divided into limited phases. To understand this fact is to understand the basis of Christian Science. Healing is proved just in proportion as the human sense of things subsides because of the acceptance of Principle, infinite Mind, and its orderly action as the present fact. On page xi of the Preface of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation. Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural. They are the sign of Immanuel, or 'God with us,'—a divine in fluence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime,

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