Editorial April 18, 1936 Issue

Principle is Love

George Shaw Cook

MARY BAKER EDDY , the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes on page 330 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" as follows: "God is what the Scriptures declare Him to be,—Life, Truth, Love. Spirit is divine Principle, and divine Principle is Love, and Love is Mind." And in many other places in her writings she uses the word "Principle" synonymously with Love. It is evident, therefore, that Principle as understood in Christian Science is not cold or abstract, as some have believed. Since Principle is divine Love, it has all the attributes of Love, such as tenderness, gentleness, kindness, compassion, and so forth. Obviously, then, it is not cold, but expresses all the warmth of spiritual vitality.

And since Principle is Mind, it possesses the quality of consciousness. It is conscious Principle. Divine Principle, Love, being the source of all true consciousness, being, in fact, the all-knowing Mind, contains within itself the power to enforce its own unerring law. It includes within itself the inherent power of impulsion and compulsion. It governs and sustains its own universe, the spiritual universe, consciously, wisely, lovingly, and harmoniously through eternal, uninterrupted enforcement of its own perfect, invariable, spiritual law.

Another name for Principle, used in Christian Science, is Life. Mrs. Eddy defines "creator," on page 583 of Science and Health, in part, as "Spirit; Mind; intelligence; the animating divine Principle of all that is real and good; self-existent Life, Truth, and Love." Divine Principle creates, animates, energizes, invigorates, sustains, and perpetuates the spiritual universe and man through its divine law, which is ever the law of life, the law of health, wholeness, perfection.

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