There are times when every thinking human being questions the meaning of his own existence. He quite naturally wants to know the truth concerning himself, his origin, his identity, and his destiny. Christian Science reasonably and satisfactorily answers these questions and also reveals that an intelligent search for God brings to light the understanding of man as the exact image and likeness of God. In knowing God we therefore find our true selfhood. Christian Science declares that because God is Life, man lives, and lives eternally, as the idea and expression of Life. "For in him we live, and move, and have our being," said the Apostle Paul (Acts 17:28).

Because God is Mind, man is the incorporeal individual idea of Mind, revealing and expressing Mind in true knowing. Because God is Love, man is the conscious evidence of Love. One may therefore understand why Love constitutes man's true and only being. In an understanding of God as Spirit, Soul, one finds the answer to all spiritual inspiration and vision—how and why man as the divine image evidences the inspiration and spontaneity of Soul.

Recognizing the existence of an infinite cause, we also recognize its infinite effect. Searching for and gaining the idea of God, we discover the nature of man as the exact and perfect expression of God. The creator would not be a creator if creation were not. Cause and effect are one and inseparable. They are coexistent. God would not be God if man did not exist. Mind, in order to be Mind, has to have manifestation. Mind without ideas is an impossibility. In the understanding of Christian Science, one becomes spiritually conscious of God, and as he does so, man is revealed, because God and the manifestation of His own being are one and inseparable.

Mind immediately implies ideas. Truth immediately implies reality. Life immediately implies living and the eternal continuity of real being.

Love implies loving. Referring to this important point, Mary Baker Eddy, the revelator of Christian Science, writes in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 516): "God fashions all things, after His own likeness. Life is reflected in existence, Truth in truthfulness, God in goodness, which impart their own peace and permanence. Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light."

God has to have the evidence of His own being, and that evidence is man. The prophet Isaiah must have had some perception of this fact when he said (43:1, 10): "Thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. ... Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me."

Because God is Soul, man is the exact representation of Soul. Because God is Spirit, man is the exact representation of Spirit. Because God is good, man is the exact representation of good and only good. When one sees the utter impossibility of man as the divine image being other than good, how our concept of man is lifted up!

Spiritual understanding reveals that one's concept of man depends completely upon his concept of God. We therefore must apprehend the Science of man before we can demonstrate it. The proof that we are spiritually and not merely intellectually perceiving the Science of man's true being will be seen in one's practical application of this spiritual understanding in healing the sick and redeeming the sinner. It will be seen, too, in our progressive redemption, and in our ability to disassociate ourselves from all identification with the imposed belief that man lives in a matter body and is governed by the so-called laws of birth, heredity, and environment.

Through the understanding of Christian Science we see that man exists forever at the standpoint of omniscience. Because Mind is all-knowing, we may demonstrate that fact in spontaneity, perception, and perspicacity. The All-wise is expressed by man in the instant evidence of wisdom and knowledge. God being all-inclusive presence, man expresses and reveals the divine presence. Man being forever present with God precludes any possibility of his being somewhere that he should not be. Forever expressing as idea the divine presence, man's activity is fixed in Mind, abides in Mind, and expresses the government of Mind. In Christian Science this divine fact, understood, acts upon the so-called human mind and naturally brings about the relinquishment of the human belief or fear that one is not in his right place. It enables one to demonstrate Love's omnipresence and omniaction here and now.

God's perfection is naturally expressed in the perfection of man. Indeed, in knowing God we find man; and learning the nature of the real man, we are continuously discovering the nature of our own true selfhood and must therefore express and demonstrate it day by day. Impelling us to reach out toward that fulfillment, our Leader writes in Science and Health(pp. 258, 259), "The human capacities are enlarged and perfected in proportion as humanity gains the true conception of man and God." And she continues: "Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart of divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the generic term man. Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance."

Richard J. Davis