Article May 6, 1916 Issue

Making Knowledge Practical

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

The key to human destiny lies in the correct answer to Pilate's question to Jesus,—"What is truth?"—which has been bandied about the succeeding centuries as if truth were an enigma to which there is no available solution. Yet not only must every human being at some time know what truth is, but he must make that knowledge practical, since there is no other way whereby freedom from error can be won. Mortals continue in bondage to evil conditions because they are ignorant of the truth, or knowing it fail to obey it. Some would answer Pilate's question academically, endeavoring to satisfy human need with doctrines and theories; but the Master's teachings imply that more than intellectual belief is required, and that is demonstration, the individual living of the truth. It is safe to say that until the things of God's kingdom become the positive realities of one's daily consciousness, he is not knowing the truth in the full sense indicated by the Master.

Truth is the divine verity and permanency of things. It includes all that is real. It constitutes the only being or consciousness known to God or to the perfect man. This being so, should we not ask ourselves what is the truth to us,—the divinity which Jesus called good, or the errors that mortals name evil? Do we find our reality in the realm of so-called material consciousness, or in the realm of spiritual consciousness? "How important, then," Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 481), "to choose good as the reality!" And why? Obviously because human consciousness is filled to overflowing with indescribable discord in consequence of choosing evil as reality. The Master foresaw and foretold the coming to humanity of the "Comforter," the whole truth about God, whose mission it is to lead mankind "into all truth," and consequently out of all error.

This revelation has appeared in Christian Science; and we who call ourselves Christian Scientists have declared, in taking that name, our choice of reality to be on the side of good. We have accepted the divine Principle, Love, defined by St. John as God, as being the only power and intelligence of the universe. This is well; but to what extent are we making this avowed choice effective in our lives? In what measure is divinity allowed actually to permeate our consciousness and our thinking, deciding our motives and directing our acts? Much if not all of the underlying cause of lack of progress lies in the fact that the student is not making practical all that he understands of Christian Science. Selfishness opens the door to known errors, and apathy leaves it unguarded, until perhaps one awakens with a shock to find that instead of practising the truth he has in effect been practising its suppositional opposite.

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