Article April 15, 1950 Issue

"WHO WANTS TO BE MORTAL?"

EARL ALBERT RUSSELL

Sometimes a student of Christian Science asks himself in all seriousness, "Why do I not progress faster than I do in Christian Science?" Or he may question: "Why have I not been healed in Christian Science? Why does the discordant condition continue in spite of my earnest study, together with prayerful efforts of consecrated Christian Science practitioners?"

Every claim of discord, whether physical or mental, is due to a misunderstanding of man's true being and of his relationship to God. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, and who is the author of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," asks (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 104), "Who wants to be mortal, or would not gain the true ideal of Life and recover his own individuality?" Then she adds (pp. 104, 105): "I will love, if another hates. I will gain a balance on the side of good, my true being. This alone gives me the forces of God wherewith to overcome all error. On this rests the implicit faith engendered by Christian Science, which appeals intelligently to the facts of man's spirituality, individuality, to disdain the fears and destroy the discords of this material personality."

What a thought-arresting question is this: "Who wants to be mortal?" Actually, no one who is intelligently aware of man's divine rights. "Who wants to be mortal?" might be paraphrased: Who wants to be sick? Who wants to be miserable? Who wants to be limited? Who wants to be lonesome? and so on. Christian Science challenges the belief that man is mortal. It insists that man is immortal, and it does so with this Scriptural authority (Gen. 1:27): "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Surely nothing could be plainer. If God is perfect, and almost everyone, regardless of his religious teachings, will agree that He is, then man, in His image, in His likeness, must of necessity be perfect, because a perfect cause has to produce a perfect effect. Therefore Christian Science challenges the reality of disease, pain, sin, death, unhappiness, because regardless of how real they may seem to afflicted ones, God neither made them nor permits them.

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