Article November 19, 1949 Issue

TIME, A MORTAL THOUGHT

[Original article in German]

WILHELM PEPERKORN

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy we read (pp. 598, 599): "Time is a mortal thought, the divisor of which is the solar year. Eternity is God's measurement of Soul-filled years." This being true, the concept of time must be temporal and finite and will vanish when erroneous, mortal thinking fades away and gives place to the divine consciousness.

"Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world," declared James the apostle (Acts 15:18). Thus God's creation —the universe, including man— eternally exists as the perfect and immortal idea of divine Mind. Since God and His reflection, the perfect man, are one, as Christ Jesus revealed to mankind when he said (John 10:30), "I and my Father are one," man is provided with spiritual senses. "Man and his Maker are correlated in divine Science, and real consciousness is cognizant only of the things of God," we read on page 276 of Science and Health. In this consciousness, in this harmonious and eternal realm of ideas, there is no time or change. Time, being a mortal measurement, is unknown to the eternal God and to man. His reflection.

What shall we say then of the time concept in relation to mortal existence? Since according to the teachings of Christian Science there is only spiritual man, eternal and immortal, the image and likeness of Spirit, God, there cannot in reality be a temporary, mortal existence. If immortal man is uninterruptedly conscious of perfect being, he cannot also be conscious of the phenomena of mortal existence, of change, birth, and decay. Because God made all that is made, there is but one creation, the divine. A standpoint outside of infinite Spirit is therefore impossible. A mortal who believes he is cognizant of a material world is no more real than the dream self that experiences the pleasures or terrors of a dream.

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