Article March 19, 1932 Issue

Preëxistence and Reconciliation

LESTER B. MC COUN

Christian Science reveals that man existed as the spiritual idea or child of God before mortals appeared to experience human birth. Also, that man's real identity, as God eternally knows it to be, has continued unchanged regardless of what the dream of life in matter may have seemed to be. Each of God's children has his own spiritual identity, which is entirely separate from the belief of material existence, and which, like its source, has no beginning. The starting point of man is not a question of matter, time, or place, but is found in the self-existent God, of whom man is the immortal expression, and in whom he lives, moves, and has his being.

Just as God always has been the necessary divine Principle of the spiritual universe, so man always has been the necessary reflection of Spirit. Therefore, whatever one learns now regarding his own spiritual identity pertains to that which ever has been and ever will be the fact about him. As we read in Ecclesiastes, "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done."

Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 181), "Mortals will lose their sense of mortality—disease, sickness, sin, and death—in the proportion that they gain the sense of man's spiritual preexistence as God's child." In Christian Science, spiritual preëxistence refers to immortal man, who reflects unchangeable Life, which in no sense is limited by or began with matter. It is unimportant and unnecessary mentally to struggle to determine where, when, and by whom the dream of material existence first was believed. It is necessary and important to know that the dream of material existence is false, and that man existed as the immortal image of God before anyone seemed to be deceived by mortal belief. One who suddenly finds himself in the chilly waters of a river wastes no time in considering all the details of how he got there, but, recognizing his need of safety, promptly strikes out for the shore. Mrs. Eddy has investigated the workings of so-called mortal mind, and her explanations amply show the insecurity of all material beliefs. We are required in the present to understand the eternal truth and to practice it in overcoming all the thoughts of daily experience leading to sin, disease, and death. What we thus bring out as the expression of divine Life is a token of our "spiritual preexistence" as the children of God. Hence all should steadfastly cling to the true concept of immortality, which commences with God and continues there.

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