On page 274 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy. its author, writes, "Divine Science is absolute, and permits no half-way position in learning its Principle and rule— establishing it by demonstration." This statement indicates, therefore, that in order to demonstrate the truth of Christian Science, one has to think from a standpoint that is absolutely correct; that is, from the standpoint of the present perfection of God and man. Truth is always absolute and therefore does not permit one to take a halfway position as far as one's thinking is concerned. Because Christ, Truth, is always available and operative in human experience, there is no condition where correct and absolute knowing will not eliminate and destroy an incorrect point of view.

Let us consider an example of spiritually correct knowing and, on the other hand, of thinking from a human or relative standpoint. Not infrequently someone says: "I like Christian Science; I believe in it. But I have so little understanding. How can I demonstrate its truth when I know so little?" At first thought it might seem proper and modest to take this attitude, but if one really wishes to grow in the understanding and demonstration of Christian Science it must be seen that such a statement is purely relative. Indeed it is incorrect, because it is in effect a denial of the truth. It is a denial of one's true and only selfhood.

One cannot grow in spiritual understanding if he is mentally and audibly declaring that he does not possess it. The fact is that if man is, as Christian Science declares, the reflection of infinity, he is now the unfolding manifestation of infinite intelligence and understanding. The great truth that Mind is One and infinite means that there is sufficient understanding for every individual in his true being. This is the spiritual fact regarding man, and this spiritual fact, understood and maintained, must be specifically applied to the erroneous belief that man is finite, material, and limited in understanding.

When an individual awakes to his personal shortcomings and seeks to live up to the highest and best in human conduct, it is certainly a step in the right direction. One must desire to be better before improvement is expressed in action. But after he has discovered, through the study of Christian Science, his true and inseparable relationship to God, his forever oneness and unity with good, is it not more in line with correct thinking to be good because that is the normal and natural status of man?

Since man is the exact image of good, it is inevitable that he show forth good in every particular, and never evil. In her book "Retrospection and Introspection" Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 86): "There is but one way of doing good, and that is to do it! There is but one way of being good, and that is to be good!" To say, "I do so want to be good, to be a better man," is certainly helpful as far as it goes. But Christian Science teaches us to go farther than that. It teaches us to stand on the present and forever goodness of God, and therefore of man as His reflection and expression.

Christian Science makes it clear that to continue to think of oneself or of anyone else as a fallen, sinful mortal will never enable him to demonstrate perfection, either in the present or in the future. Revealing as it does man's forever spiritual being, Science makes clear the fact that if one regards himself as a mortal with faults and failings, struggling and hoping to be better, for actual demonstration his premise is wrong at the start, for he has already admitted the erroneous assumption that he is material.

In order for one to demonstrate goodness, the premise must be correct. Mrs. Eddy states that premise in Science and Health. She writes (p. 470): "The standard of perfection was originally God and man. Has God taken down His own standard, and has man fallen? God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect." And again, beginning on the same page, she says, "The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history."

Paul, also, in writing to the Corinthians, did not tell them to merely desire to be perfect, or to want to be of one Mind, or to hope to live in peace. He stated the truth spiritually and correctly (II Cor. 13:11): "Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you."

Richard J. Davis