One Cause and One Effect

No matter how black and overwhelming the clouds of erroneous thinking may seem, the student of Christian Science can always rest secure in the knowledge that, since he is conscious of his own existence, consciousness must be. Since consciousness or being is, there must be the truth about it. If true being is, then false being or the lie about being can only have a supposititious existence. It can only be on the assumption that that which really is is not. That which true being expresses must be cause, and that which is cause must be one whole, for if it were two or more entities it could not be cause in any true sense of the word. Clearly, first cause must be one, in order to produce true being. Have we not the warrant of Scripture for saying that a house divided against itself cannot stand? As it would ever need Being to produce being, first cause must exist in and of itself; that is to say, it must be self-existent Being or Life itself. From this solid basis of a self-existent first cause which is Life itself the student can logically proceed to deduce the facts of true being and apply them fearlessly to solve the problems of human existence.

It is clear that that which exists in and of itself never began and can never end; in other words, it is eternal. It is also clear that that which is eternal must be good itself in the highest sense of the word good, for if it contained within itself any elements of evil it would hold within itself the seeds of ultimate decay and destruction. If such a state of things were thinkable it would amount to an absurdity, for if it were possible for self-existent first cause to be destroyed then sooner or later a position would be reached where nothing would be—a concept which is clearly absurd. Hence matter and human thinking, both of which are subject to annihilation, have no part in real being. Reasoning after this fashion, one sees that all real being is the effect or expression of a self-existent, harmonious, spiritual cause. This cause is God, as understood in Christian Science. Cause cannot be apart from effect, hence cause must be expressed as effect. Mrs. Eddy, on page 303 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," puts this very clearly when she says: "God, without the image and likeness of Himself, would be a nonentity, or Mind unexpressed. He would be without a witness or proof of His own nature. Spiritual man is the image or idea of God, an idea which cannot be lost nor separated from its divine Principle." Man, then, is the effect or expression or image of God; hence he is spiritual, harmonious, and eternal.

Mortal man expressing discord or inharmony is not and cannot be the effect of harmonious first cause, or God. This follows naturally if one considers that the very nature of effect is to express the character, the essence, if one can so put it, of cause. Nearly nineteen hundred years ago Jesus of Nazareth sought to make this point clear to his disciples in the phrase, "For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes." So in like fashion one can reason with regard to all the phenomena of human existence; nothing not in accord with infinite harmony has any real being, for only that which manifests harmony can be the expression of harmonious, self-existent first cause, or God. The truth about effect can hardly be more clearly and concisely stated than in Mrs. Eddy's words on page 207 of Science and Health, under the marginal heading "One primal cause," where she says: "There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause."