Editorial September 4, 1948 Issue

MAN'S DEPENDENCE ON GOD

Helen Wood Bauman

Christian Science reveals the relationship of God to man as that of Mind to its idea. This relationship seals man's dependence on his Maker, for it defines him as effect, not cause. Effect is tributary to cause and must ever look to cause for all that it expresses. Christ Jesus explained his dependence on the Father precisely when he said (John 5:30), "I can of mine own self do nothing."

It was on such Scriptural authority that Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, based her teaching regarding the unity which exists between God and His idea, man. In her book "Miscellaneous Writings" she says (p. 46), "In Science, man represents his divine Principle,—the Life and Love that are God,—even as the idea of sound, in tones, represents harmony; but thought has not yet wholly attained unto the Science of being, wherein man is perfect even as the Father, his divine Principle, is perfect."

The spiritual man, which Science unveils, is not the earthly mortal apparent to the material senses, but an incorporeal, individual consciousness which emanates from Mind as the embodiment of Spirit's pure and true elements. This spiritual man, God's likeness, expresses the nature of divine Principle even as musical sounds express the varied beauty of harmony. He manifests Life in eternal existence, Soul in sinlessness, Love in unvarying goodness, and Truth in steadfast integrity. It is through spiritual identities alone that God exhibits or manifests His qualities and attributes. Man can never lose his entity, nor become separated from God, for his eternal function in being is to individualize the immutable forces of Spirit.

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