Article June 12, 1948 Issue

FREEDOM FROM LIMITED CIRCUMSTANCES

PAUL K. WAVRO

A Student of Christian Science was discussing with a Christian Science practitioner an expenditure of money which seemed necessary and right, but which had not been anticipated. During the conversation the student remarked, "To a person in my circumstances it is simply out of the question." The practitioner then asked the student this thought-provoking question: "Where do we find man's real existence—in Spirit or in matter?" The answer was apparent. The student had learned in Christian Science that man's existence is in God, Spirit, and not in His opposite, matter.

Every Christian Scientist is acquainted with the scientific fact that God is infinite good. If God is good, then it must follow that His image and likeness, man, expresses good. Mary Baker Eddy tells us (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 258), "Man reflects infinity, and this reflection is the true idea of God." Then man is the reflection of the limitless, boundless, inexhaustible good which is God. Reflecting limitless good, man cannot be limited or impoverished. Expressing inexhaustible abundance, man cannot know or experience limitation of any kind—whether of health, freedom, life, or supply. The practitioner pointed out that the word "circumstance," as commonly used, limits or modifies existence or character, and can never apply to God; hence it can never apply to His spiritual idea, man. Limited circumstances are simply the limited, material beliefs of mortals externalized. Mortal mind beholds its own material concepts and accepts them as real; thus it holds man to be mortal, restricted, and conditioned by matter.

The student then realized that his need was not primarily for a greater amount of money or material things, which are always fleeting and insubstantial, but for a better understanding of the true spiritual creation, and for a knowledge of God's infinitude and of man's unity therewith.

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