Editorial December 2, 1950 Issue

INESCAPABLE LAW

Helen Wood Bauman

Everyone is living under the mandate of law, whether he realizes it or not. Until instructed by Christian Science, which demonstrates the will of God as the supreme governing law of the universe, each individual seems to make laws for himself. His belief becomes the law of his experience, since human experience is nothing more than externalized belief. Paul understood this inevitable sequence and wrote (Gal. 6:7), "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Mary Baker Eddy quotes Paul's words on page 66 of "Miscellaneous Writings" and then makes this comment: "No possible injustice lurks in this mandate, and no human misjudgment can pervert it; for the offender alone suffers, and always according to divine decree."

A leading point in Christian Science is the fact that sin punishes itself by keeping the sinning consciousness out of God's kingdom. If the innocent seem to suffer, it is because they do not destroy the belief that they must do so, and not because God's law is in any way abrogated by error. Their belief delays their freedom only until they are better instructed by Science; but under no circumstance can they escape the blessing which is the heritage of innocence. God blesses what He makes, and the invariable reward for goodness is the elevation of thought to perceive clearer views of reality.

Whoever destroys false beliefs through the demonstration of spiritual reality is master of his experiences. Belief ceases to be a law to him, and he proves his true identity to be Love's law-controlled idea. But if false belief is tenacious and one is slow in recognizing its nothingness, or evades the issue, the belief will follow out the unpleasant development by which it destroys itself. Our Leader says (ibid., p. 73), "Belief fulfils the conditions of a belief, and these conditions destroy the belief." Like fire, which holds within itself the elements of self-destruction, every uncorrected false thought brings about its own annihilation. This is an inescapable law, as inescapable as the fact that righteousness reaps the reward of obedience to Love's law of good, the harvest of liberation from material limitations and disorder. The moment false belief is actually destroyed on the basis that God is All and that His creation is perfect, the penalty of believing falsely is annulled.

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