Article February 7, 1970 Issue

"The human and divine coincidence"

RUSSELL D. ROBINSON

One day I opened Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and my eyes lit upon these words of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science: "John saw the human and divine coincidence, shown in the man Jesus, as divinity embracing humanity in Life and its demonstration,—reducing to human perception and understanding the Life which is God."^{Science and Health, p. 561;}

The words "the human and divine coincidence" and "divinity embracing humanity" stood out to me as if I had never seen them before. I pondered their meaning. What struck me so forcibly was the fact that these words were exactly contrary to a firmly held belief of mine. I had been believing that there was another coincidence operating in my experience: the coincidence of the human and the mortal. Indeed, to me the human seemed much more mortal, or material, than divine. And furthermore, whenever I used the word "human," even when discussing Christian Science, I had made it synonymous with "mortal." I had not yet learned that "mortal," in its primary meaning, refers to total evil, whereas human includes spiritual elements.

As I pondered the meaning of Mrs. Eddy's words, I felt their power and impact. And I recognized that, of course, as long as I thought of humanity as separated from divinity and identified with mortality, demonstration of God's healing power was quite impossible. It became clear to me that divinity cannot embrace mortality or ever be coincident with mortality. By thinking of the human as altogether mortal I had in fact cut myself off from God.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

"Talk less and realize more"