Unity

The claim of ignorance is responsible for all manner of material misconceptions. Resting as it does on the deceptive testimony of the physical senses, the method of scientific research which has dominated the activities of modern civilization has been largely responsible for the spread of agnosticism as a religious doctrine as well as a philosophical tenet, until now professed ignorance of God is frequently regarded even in theological circles as a sort of hallmark of intellectual culture rather than as a confession of the lack of spiritual perception, for have not religionists of various creeds, indeed, come to accept unquestioningly the illogical and absurd supposition that an all-wise creator made man blindfold, as it were, to grope after the truth as best he could amid a maze of decoying illusions and unavoidable pitfalls? Although the apostle John declares that to know the only true God and His reflection, spiritual man, "is life eternal," the Christian world has become so mesmerized with the notion that it was not intended that man should understand his Maker, that blind belief in the unknown almost entirely usurps the place of that living faith which enabled the early disciples to prove their knowledge of God even in ways which compelled acknowledgment from the incredulous senses. Nevertheless even the signal advances in material directions which have been made within modern times are attributable to the overcoming in some measure of the belief of ignorance—the belief that God's ways are beyond man's comprehension. Says Mrs. Eddy in the Preface to Science and Health (p. vii): "Ignorance of God is no longer the stepping-stone to faith. The only guarantee of obedience is a right apprehension of Him whom to know aright is Life eternal." As it dawns on mankind that it is not a decree of Deity but self-limiting belief that seems to set boundaries to human knowledge, the solution of every human problem is seen to lie in the spiritual understanding of God, which antidotes both ignorance and sin.

When the unity of good in divine Science is grasped, the oneness of evil, as a false claim, becomes apparent also, and the futility of trying to banish this or that symptom of evil without taking into account the baselessness of the claim of evil as a whole, is obvious. By consenting to the arguments of error or evil in one form, we put ourselves in league with the asserted operations of error in other and often unsuspected directions, and in so doing invite penalties which are supposed to attach to other specific forms of transgression. To plead ignorance, the supposition that man is separated from the reflection of infinite intelligence, as an excuse for wrongdoing, is to open the door at the same time, perchance, to malice and hate.

"The time for thinkers has come," writes Mrs. Eddy on page vii of the Preface to Science and Health. Although forced to bestir themselves in certain directions by the seeming exigencies of a struggle for existence or by the impulse to gratify personal desires, mankind, as a rule, have shown little inclination to reach out in a spontaneous effort to know the truth about God which alone frees thought from the bondage of sin and self-deception. This sense of obliviousness or unalertness to the demand of Spirit, which induces most mortals to delegate the responsibility for their spiritual and physical well-being to a minister or priest and a family doctor, to seek salvation by proxy as it were, would prevent Christian Scientists from demonstrating man's scientific relation to his creating, sustaining, informing divine Principle by persuading them to rely habitually on the services of a practitioner and to look to teachers and church officials for wisdom and guidance more than to God, who, as the apostle James phrases it, "giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not." It is impossible to imbibe the spirit of Christian Science without realizing in a peculiar sense the force of the Revelator's words when he declares that those who apprehend the truth manifested by Christ Jesus are made "kings and priests unto God and his Father." No end of bitterness and intolerance has arisen in the traditional church from the delegation to ecclesiastical authorities and personal representatives of the individual's prerogative of thinking for himself, of demonstrating his highest understanding of Principle and according the same liberty to others. How can one prove that man is God-governed, as Christian Science teaches, so long as he leans on personal opinion and human authority as a guide to right activity, instead of looking to the source of all true wisdom and understanding for enlightenment and wisdom?