Editorial June 30, 1934 Issue

Perfection and Reality

Violet Ker Seymer

In her terse statement, "Perfection underlies reality" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 353), Mrs. Eddy shows us that perfection and reality are inseverable, that one does not exist without the other. Logically, then, imperfection and unreality are likewise linked together. The holy oneness of reality and perfection offers humanity refuge from its pettiness, fear, and suffering.

God-bestowed perfection is no haphazard state, liable to lapse into its opposite. Perfection is upheld by spiritual law. Our Leader writes (No and Yes, p. 26): "All real being represents God, and is in Him. In this Science of being, man can no more relapse or collapse from perfection, than his divine Principle, or Father, can fall out of Himself into something below infinitude." Perfection being the expression of God's being, there is no such thing as imperfect, incomplete, or discordant being, and this fact can be progressively demonstrated in human experience. Christian Science enables us to realize and rejoice in God's infinite presence, beyond which none can actually stray. The whole purpose of Christianity is that God's beneficent will shall be understood and obeyed here and now, for in this understanding and this obedience lies the certain way of salvation for all mankind.

Looking not to matter but to Mind and its laws for his integrity, health, and harmonious existence, the Christian Scientist aligns himself with reality and perfection, as Christianity requires him to do. The result is that he is able to give striking evidence of his own real being as God's offspring. When the false claims of the flesh and of so-called material or medical law press upon him their illicit demands, he takes refuge in the spiritual fact that as man he has not fallen away from the infinitude of good, and that no evil has ever invaded his infinite and God-bestowed harmony. Recognizing all discord as an outlaw, devoid of human or divine purpose, he reaches out now for the proof of Mind's perfection as evidenced in man's reflection.

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