Article November 6, 1954 Issue

EXERCISING SPIRITUAL DOMINION

GENEVE K. O'NEIL

In studying the first chapter of Genesis we learn that God created man in His own image and likeness and gave him dominion over all the earth. We know that God is incorporeal, spiritual; therefore man, as His image, must also be incorporeal, spiritual. It is only through our understanding that the real man is spiritual and not material that we can recognize our divine sonship and demonstrate our dominion.

Christ Jesus, whom Christian Scientists accept as their Way-shower, was the most spiritually-minded person who ever trod the earth. He claimed his heritage as the Son of God and exercised his God-given dominion and power by casting out evil, healing the sick, and raising the dead. As we strive to emulate his teachings, we grow in the understanding of the Science of Christ and find this dominion and power being manifested in our daily human experience.

However, the false claims of material sense sometimes seem so real to human thought that one may be tempted to say, "I feel very much depressed and burdened by the uncertainty of things today; what is there to live for?" This kind of thinking is based on a belief that life exists in matter and that matter has the power to make us feel miserable, either physically or mentally. But knowing that God, Spirit, is omnipotent and governs man, we see that he is not subject to the claims of material sense. Man's seeming to be corporeal does not make him so any more than the sun's seeming to travel from east to west proves that the sun itself is moving. If we identify ourselves as corporeal beings, we are not able to comprehend our true selfhood. But as we come to see God as Spirit, divine Mind, Life, Truth, and Love, and man as His image, we identify ourselves correctly. Thus a mortal selfhood apart from God is seen to be impossible.

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