Perfection

RAYMOND D. HEINE

The great need of the world today is for a better understanding of God and of man's relationship to Him. Men try in various ways to improve human conditions. Their concepts of what they are accomplishing differ according to individual experience. However, all will agree that without health and harmony there is little joy, even in our human sense of good. Lack of understanding of God, and of man made in His image and likeness, prevents the realization of right desires.

Christian Science clearly explains the unity of God and man; and all who study its textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, may obtain an understanding of this fact. The truth about God and man is so simple that even young children readily grasp its meaning and apply it in their experiences. The Bible indicates that God is Mind, Truth, Love, and that He is good. We also learn in the first chapter of Genesis—that chapter which gives the spiritual record of creation—of man made in the image and likeness of God. Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, admonished all mankind, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." We need to claim our true selfhood; by so doing, through all our changing experiences, spiritual power will operate to establish harmony in our lives. Man, as the reflection of God, expresses God's perfect qualities in unlimited measure.

A study of the life of Jesus shows that he overcame all the arguments of the material sense through his understanding of God and of man's relationship to Him. In Science and Health (pp. 476, 477) Mrs. Eddy says of Jesus' ability to heal: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." These statements indicate the necessity of our knowing the truth about God, because without this knowledge it would be impossible for us to have "this correct view of man."

God is good. Error, discord, or imperfection, regardless of the manner of its appearing, is not of God. Since God is Truth, then error, being the opposite of God, is untrue and unreal. The testimony of the material senses would try to keep us from realizing perfection as the reflection of God, and this error is overcome by claiming our true selfhood.

A young Christian Scientist was experiencing some difficulty in solving his problems in arithmetic. Regardless of how hard he worked, his daily papers continued to contain wrong answers. The boy asked his father for help in Christian Science. The father called his attention to the truths he had learned in Sunday school, namely, that since man is the son of God, made in His image and likeness, he is the likeness of divine Mind, the reflection of divine intelligence. Mrs. Eddy tells us on page 336 of Science and Health, "God, the divine Principle of man, and man in God's likeness are inseparable, harmonious, and eternal." Man cannot be separated from God; therefore he cannot be separated from intelligence. The boy, realizing his constant relationship to God, became conscious of his God-bestowed right to express the faculties of Mind. He recognized the spiritual facts, and was thus enabled to see his true selfhood in an entirely new light. His increased understanding of God enabled him to gain in a fuller measure "this correct view of man."

The first evidence of a change in his experience, as a result of this claiming of his true selfhood, was the improved appearance of his arithmetic papers. They were now neat and orderly. Then followed an increase in the number of correct answers to his problems. This continued to the end of the term, when his grade in arithmetic was found to be as high as that in his other studies. Thus he proved that the evidence of the material senses, or such erroneous beliefs as hurry, lack of attention, or conflicting interests, could not prevent him from reflecting God, perfect Mind.

As we claim our true selfhood through our increased understanding of God, knowing that erroneous beliefs or the testimony of the physical senses are no part of the real man, and earnestly denying and rejecting the seeming evidence of the unreal, we rise above error. In the proportion that the testimony of the material senses is rejected, and the fact that man is the image and likeness of God is held to, the true nature of God will be expressed in our lives.

The sense of present good is sometimes marred by the memory of an unpleasant experience of the past. All too often we remember those unlovely incidents to the exclusion of beautiful spiritual thoughts. Forgetting self in striving to learn more about God is one way to rise above these unpleasant memories. Likewise, many other false beliefs, held consciously or unconsciously, are relinquished when we apply ourselves with an earnest desire to know God aright. "The perfect Mind sends forth perfection, for God is Mind" (ibid., p. 239). The real man is eternally one with God and, reflecting the divine Mind, he is the constant expression of spiritual perfection.

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