Article May 24, 1947 Issue

Claim and Demonstration

MAURICE E. MOSHER

Students of Christian Science often use the words "claim" and "demonstration" in a way that may not be wholly clear to one not familiar with its teachings. For example, because God is recognized as the Father-Mother of man, God's claims on man are the only legitimate ones. Likewise we cannot lay claim to any condition or situation not created by the one and only creator. Therefore to declare, "I have a claim," and then go on and describe an imperfection, an ill, or an evil, is to acknowledge that which is not true about one's real selfhood. It is not difficult to see that the declaration, "I have a claim," meaning a difficulty or problem, is really an acknowledgement of being bound to that from which we very much wish to be separated.

It is mortal mind and nothing else which claims to attach error to us, and mortal mind itself is but a false belief in a mind apart from God, the one and only Mind and the Mind of man. In the proportion that we perceive this scientific fact we are enabled to annul the claims of mortal mind and rise into a higher, more spiritual sense of being. Mary Baker Eddy states in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 205, 206), "When we fully understand our relation to the Divine, we can have no other Mind but His,—no other Love, wisdom, or Truth, no other sense of Life, and no consciousness of the existence of matter or error."

In her writings our inspired Leader speaks of the attachments of error as false claims, because such claims would have us concede legality and rightfulness to false assertions. Since the false beliefs of mortality, sin, sickness, and death do not stem from God, they do not belong to His creation and have no claims on man, for this Scriptural statement of creation is true (Gen. 1:31): "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Any claim which does not have God as its progenitor is self-evidently false. The recognition of this falsity aids us in rejecting harmful claims and in demonstrating the health and harmony which belong to man.

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