Man's God-given Dominion

Duncan Sinclair

How often do men seem to be the slaves of circumstances, suffering from sickness or the effects of evil doing! Think of the fear that haunts many of them with regard to disease, fear lest they may become victims of it, lest they may contract it perhaps by contact with an unhealthy environment. Think of the dread of many that they or their children may come under an evil influence and be vitiated by it. One of the chief reasons for the anxiety of many parents is the dread they entertain lest their sons and daughters may not be able to stand against the temptations they may encounter outside the home circle. It is only too evident that mankind in general has but a feeble sense of dominion over the evils which it believes to be indigenous to human existence.

It may be argued that much has been done to prevent disease by means of sanitation and isolation of the sick. Indeed, cleanliness—itself undoubtedly the effect of better and purer thinking—has done and is doing much to promote and to preserve a better sense of health. Yet the fact remains that many live under the pernicious belief that they are liable to go down under disease should they find themselves in what is termed a disease-laden atmosphere. They do not possess that sense of dominion which would render them immune. In a similar way there are those who believe themselves to have little resisting power where evil is concerned. They readily fall under the allurements of sin, too often with tragic results.

Now the question arises, Is it possible for men to gain dominion over evil, including disease and all other forms of inharmony? Christian Science answers that it is possible; and it shows how it can be done. Christian Science teaches that God is infinite Mind, and that man is God's—Mind's—idea; also, that man is the reflection—the full reflection—of God, and that he thus embraces in his consciousness all other right ideas. This is the same as saying that man has dominion over all the lesser right ideas of God. Nothing can annul this fact. Nothing can change it in any way. It is as fixed, as permanent, as God Himself.

What, then, is wrong with our sense of dominion? The error arises in believing that there is a creation—a material creation—as well as a spiritual creation. It is this false material sense of creation that causes the trouble; that in belief would deprive us of our birthright of God-given dominion. Let men continue to believe in matter as real, in material man as real, and they will remain subject to so-called material law and continue to be the victims of disease and sin. The situation is plain: mankind is held in bondage by material sense.

Mrs. Eddy writes on page 228 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "The enslavement of man is not legitimate. It will cease when man enters into his heritage of freedom, his God-given dominion over the material senses." And a sentence farther on she adds, "Then they [mortals] will control their own bodies through the understanding of divine Science." Does not she indicate the way of liberty in the words "God-given dominion over the material senses"? What hope they have inspired in many a one nearly broken by despair! Yes, God has decreed—it is His law—that man, His image, shall have full dominion. We must apprehend this fact, and strive to demonstrate it.

The conflict, then, is with material sense; and men will be victorious over this false sense in the proportion that they are obedient to spiritual law, in the ratio that they are governed by spiritual understanding. They must more and more put off the carnal mind by assimilating in increasing measure the Mind of Christ; then will they vanquish materiality. Our Leader says (ibid., p. 393): "Mind is the master of the corporeal senses, and can conquer sickness, sin, and death. Exercise this God-given authority." Mrs. Eddy here speaks in no halting manner. It is clear beyond all doubt that it lies with the individual himself to perceive that his real spiritual selfhood already has divine authority, and that by exercising it he can master every argument of materiality.

In the eighth Psalm it is written: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? ... Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet." What a clear sense of man's dominion is here expressed! And did not Jesus, more than any other who has lived on earth, understand this truth and demonstrate it by healing all manner of disease? His followers in these later days must, through Christian Science, gain the understanding he had of man's God-given dominion; then they will be able to follow him by doing the work he did.

Duncan Sinclair

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