Article June 23, 1923 Issue

Matter Unreal

LESTER PARKER

“Nothing!" That is not an unusual reply to the quite common question, "What is the matter?" When viewed in the light which Christian Science makes available, "nothing" is truly the correct answer. Without the light of Christian Science, how often that brave answer belies the distressed feeling that has given rise to whatever unpleasant action, expression, or environment has elicited the question. The tendency to deny discord strongly indicates the inherent recognition that it is undesirable and unpraiseworthy. It is here that the power of analysis, which is taught in Christian Science, helps us to rest our denial of the reality of matter upon the basis of Truth.

It is evident that the term matter, in the sense of the question, "What is the matter?" refers solely to a so-called mental condition or experience. And a careful examination of the illusive cause of the discordant condition will surely reveal the fact that the experience of inharmony of any sort is dependent upon, and undivorcible from, the belief in matter as reality and substance. Mrs. Eddy says in "Unity of Good" (p. 31): "According to Christian Science, the first idolatrous claim of sin is, that matter exists; the second, that matter is substance; the third, that matter has intelligence; and the fourth, that matter, being so endowed, produces life and death." In other words, all our troubles are contingent on believing that something will or will not happen to or as the result of matter. The difficulties are not merely the result of fears: they are the fears themselves; and the removal of the fear destroys them,—takes them out of the only place they ever even seemed to occupy, matter-beliefs.

How to get rid of fear, then, that is the question. Christian Science lays great stress on the Bible definition, "God is love," and upon those other inspiring words of John, "Perfect love casteth out fear." We need to understand about perfect Love; we need the knowledge of Love as power. In the "scientific statement of being" in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 468), Mrs. Eddy has declared, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." This scientific fact eliminates all that would deny and defy Truth. Moreover, it is in strict accordance with the preceding sentence, namely, "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter." Thus we begin to see that the power of Love, God, is the result of His being; and that nothing else can be. And we yearn to make this inspiration practical—to apply it.

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