Article May 26, 1934 Issue

Symbols versus Substance

TILLIE C. VAN DER VOORT

WHEN one seeker for a more satisfying religious teaching attended a Christian Science service for the first time, he was startled by the revolutionary declaration of "the scientific statement of being," which begins, "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy, p. 468). He soon discovered, however, that this is a pivotal point in the divergence of this teaching from other religious doctrines, a point on the understanding of which the healing of disease and other discords depends. He found that the challenging and changing of a material concept of creation is the first necessary step towards the demonstration of that freedom which is the natural heritage of spiritual man.

He became increasingly grateful for the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, who has given to the world a religion free from superstition and emotionalism, a spiritual teaching that is indeed Science, and that yields demonstrable knowledge in proportion as the study of it is pursued. In the Christian Science textbook he found scientific definitions of true creation and intelligent answers to Scriptural questions that had often perplexed him. How gratifying to study a theology so logical in its statement that the growing understanding of it might be compared with the progress of a child in the study of mathematics! Although the child learns the rules of arithmetic from written groups of numbers, he is taught that these symbols merely represent certain useful ideas which exist under the protection of mathematical law.

The student of Christian Science learns to regard the transitory forms of material creation as symbols which may hint the existence of spiritual ideas. In God's kingdom temporal symbols are unknown, and in order to enter this perfect, eternal realm, one must look beyond the symbol, and gain, step by step, the substance or spiritual understanding of reality. Mrs. Eddy says in "Unity of Good" (p. 61), "Our highest sense of infinite good in this mortal sphere is but the sign and symbol, not the substance of good."

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