Freedom through Uprightness
Freedom in human experience is the result of a provable understanding of God. It is futile to assert freedom in the name of willfulness, selfishness, or arrogant ambition. Mrs. Eddy presents the idea of freedom in her teachings for the emancipation of the whole race. On page 228 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she writes, "Mortals will some day assert their freedom in the name of Almighty God." Freedom is the fruit of spiritually controlled thought and action.
The term "Almighty God" signifies the omnipotence of Spirit, which lifts human thought above suffering, sin, failure. There is no law of bondage and no bondman, for God is the only Lawmaker, and every law of God bestows irrevocable freedom on man, His image.
Analyzing humanity's misguided aims and shattered ambitions, the Preacher thus summarized his conclusions: "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." What of the "many inventions" of personal worship, so often changed into personal animosity? What of the "many inventions" of material greed and ambition built upon another's downfall? What of the general beliefs in unbridled youth and crabbed old age? These and other unprincipled inventions of "the carnal mind" are millstones weighing down human thought, and those who discern and heed the relation of freedom to uprightness need no longer submit to them. Spiritual uprightness is made possible for one and all through the understanding and practice of Christian Science. Man, the likeness of God, Spirit, is everlastingly upright, that is, perfect and complete.
Christian Science draws the line of distinction between reality and unreality, and at no point is this scientific line severed or weakened. Through acknowledging the one infinite and perfect Mind, God, one learns the way of undeviating true thinking. When spiritual understanding rules material self-indulgence and dense ignorance out of human thought, the supreme love of good is quickened in the individual. Instead of being adversely swayed by circumstances, one finds that adverse circumstances give way to the power of Truth, understood. Then the freedom of spiritual uprightness appears in individual experience. "The highway of the upright is to depart from evil."
In "The People's Idea of God" (p. 10) our Leader says: "Discerning the God-given rights of man, Paul said, 'I was free born.' Justice and truth make man free, injustice and error enslave him." How is the sense of injustice which so often embitters the outlook of individuals and nations to be destroyed? By recognizing that, scientifically speaking, injustice is an ignorant human belief and not a positive quality. Injustice—the supposed absence of justice—has no creator and no victim. Everything that to material sense is unjust should be and will be righted, and when the ideals of socialism are based on Spirit and divine Principle, they will supplant wrong with right in human experience. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Injustice is one of the "many inventions" of evil, and as each individual refutes it in his consciousness, he will cease to suffer from it.
The Christian Scientist must beware of brooding over the "many inventions" which blind humanity to the impartial beneficence of infinite Love. Every student must put to silence the rankling errors which seek lodgment in his thought. Pledged to obey the dictates of divine righteousness, he must unhesitatingly reject every argument of sin, sickness, fear, injustice, sorrow. Asserting his own and another's freedom "in the name of Almighty God," he can thereby demonstrate the mental and spiritual uprightness which constitute freedom.
"Let the Word have free course and be glorified," our Leader says (No and Yes, p. 45). Whoever allows the dictum of Truth to "have free course" in his consciousness finds the old beliefs, temptations, and tremors giving way to the harmony of Mind's government. Great watchfulness is needed in order to censor in one's consciousness that which is unrelated to divine Principle. Should some specific discord seem not yet to have been blotted out by spiritual understanding and fidelity, what is to be done? One has to turn loyally, rejoicingly, again and yet again, from the material picture of bondage, and assert his freedom "in the name of Almighty God." Having asserted this freedom, he must honestly abandon the belief in bondage, fear, moral weakness—everything, in short, that is contrary to the beneficent will of God, good. In this course, consistently and courageously followed, lies the way of freedom for the individual and for the world.
Christ Jesus gave evidence of freedom through uprightness, and Christian Science likewise categorically elucidates the only way in which freedom can be won. A right understanding of God brings to light the emancipating fact that infinite Mind is omnipotent. Mortal mind and matter are devoid of presence, substance, or law, and are incapable of interfering with or even apprehending man's heritage of righteousness. Our Leader's statement of Truth (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 119) serves as the waymark of freedom for every man, woman, and child: "Man is free from the flesh and is individual in consciousness—in Mind, not in matter."
Violet Ker Seymer
