Article February 6, 1960 Issue

THE TRANSLATION OF MATTER INTO MIND

MADELINE KEENE WOOD

"Science, understood, translates matter into Mind, rejects all other theories of causation, restores the spiritual and original meaning of the Scriptures, and explains the teachings and life of our Lord." This declaration of Mary Baker Eddy is found on page 25 of "Miscellaneous Writings." As our understanding of spiritual reality increases, through our study of Christian Science, we learn how to translate matter into Mind, not by changing a so-called material manifestation, but by changing our view of the manifestation. It is the understanding of God as Mind and as Spirit which enables us to demonstrate the nothingness of matter.

Every healing in Christian Science comes about because some belief in the reality of matter has yielded. The temptation is always to try to change matter instead of changing our view of it. Science teaches that matter does not really exist. Right where the belief in matter claims to be, right there the substance of Spirit already is.

Perhaps one of the most graphic accounts of overcoming the temptations of matter or of material belief is recorded in the fourth chapter of Luke's Gospel. According to the Bible narrative, Christ Jesus was tempted by the devil for forty days in the wilderness. One of the temptations or suggestions which came to Jesus was this (Luke 4: 3): "If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread."

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