Article September 1, 1923 Issue

Undisturbed

ROBERT STANLEY ROSS

A PROPOSITION that astonishes nearly all beginners in Christian Science is the fundamental one propounded by Mrs. Eddy on page 468 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where, in answer to the question, "What is the scientific statement of being?" she writes: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.' All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is Allin-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."

Is it any wonder, in view of the common belief in matter's reality, that the neophyte, amazed at such a sweeping declaration of matter's unreality, should ask, If it be true that the divine Mind and its ideas, God and His thoughts, are all, how are we to account for material phenomena and the accompanying discords seemingly evident on every hand? Does Christian Science insist that the things I see, the sounds I hear, and the forces I feel are nothing? Or does it promise a reasonable explanation of that nothingness, and a way in which scientifically to prove it?

These are questions which presented themselves to one student of Christian Science early in his experience; but they were later answered fully and satisfactorily by another passage, on page 573 of Science and Health, where, in referring to John's vision of the new heavens and new earth, Mrs. Eddy tells us that "the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material. This shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms matter and spirit indicates states and stages of consciousness."

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