Article December 16, 1905 Issue

The Naturalness of Spirit

C. W. CHADWICK.

To "the natural man" referred to in Scripture good seems to be intangible, unnatural, and unreal, while evil seems tangible, natural, and real. When called upon to believe in the practical healing efficacy of Spirit, he finds his faith centered in "the things which are seen" rather than in "the things which are not seen;" and not until he becomes in a measure dissatisfied with himself, does he become receptive to higher thought, willing to be "taught of God." That he must honestly desire to be dispossessed of his belief in mortality before he can understand the nature of immortality, is clearly evidenced in these words from Saint Paul. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

This so-called "natural man" is anything but natural; rather is he the personification of all that is discordant, abnormal, unnatural, and unreasonable. His characteristic moral lethargy and lack of interest in spiritual things, and his unwillingness to learn about God and His perfect creation, only corroborate the truth of the above text, and suggest the unnaturalness and unreality of this supposed selfhood apart from God. From his exalted spiritual discernment the prophet Isaiah admonishes us to surrender all belief in this unnatural claim to manhood. He says, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?"

Christian Science has come to the world to show humanity how to obey this important injunction, how to cease believing in the supposed life and intelligence in matter. It, has come as a law of correction and removal to every perverted sense, to convey to individual consciousness the true concept of God, man, and the universe, which will alone reveal the divine naturalness and practical availability of Spirit in every-day life. "Man, whose breath is his nostrils," his little or no faith in Spirit, because to him Spirit seems to be supernatural, inaccessible, and practically indefinable. To him the physical is the only practical reality, and in his ignorance he calls it natural and good, and thus is laid the foundation for all the ills that flesh is heir to.

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