In answer to the question, "What is intelligence?" Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 469), "It is the primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind, of the triune Principle,—Life, Truth, and Love,—named God." She also explains in the same paragraph, "Intelligence is omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence." These are fundamental points in Christian Science, for they invalidate every claim of evil, or matter, to power, presence, or intelligence.

Spiritual intelligence is a quality native to God, divine Mind. Evil, or matter, being the opposite of God, Spirit, has none of God's qualities, nor can it acquire them in any way. When this is recognized, error's claim to intelligence in any form may be instantly challenged and its assumed influence be nullified. Error has no intelligence with which to create anything; to initiate action; to command admiration, allegiance, or respect; or to victimize anyone through fear, selfishness, lust, or hypocrisy. Nor does it have many little minds which believe it, obey it, or worship it. Lacking intelligence, evil or error is a state of chaos embodying the elements of its self-exposure and destruction.

Man, the spiritual image and likeness of God, naturally and effortlessly reflects Mind's intelligence. The omnipresence of God bespeaks the omnipresence of intelligence. All of God's creation exists under the orderly direction of Life, Truth, and Love. Because Mind is Love, it creates nothing afflictive, discordant, or destructive. Any evidence of discord arises from the false claims of material sense, which intelligence exposes and discredits. As mortals accept this truth of man and all creation and utilize it in their daily lives, they will find the fetters of mortality beginning to loosen.

Christian Science teaches that fear, ignorance, or sin is the cause of all sickness. As we express our native intelligence, there can be no fear, for the omnipresence of Love is recognized. Love being everywhere, what is there to fear? Nothing! Love being Mind, what can fear? Nothing! As for ignorance, all must agree that it disappears before intelligence.

Sin brings sure punishment and loss of self-respect, often harming others as well as oneself. To sin, therefore, is not intelligent. Intelligence recognizes no satisfaction in sin and no necessity for it. In fact, it makes plain that man as God's image is incapable of sin and that there is no irresistible influence of hereditary propensities, astrology, or general mortal belief which can make one a helpless pawn of the material senses. Rejection of the suggestions of fear, ignorance, and sin through the exercise of intelligence removes the possibility of these errors being objectified in human experience, and thus maintains a normal state of harmony in human consciousness.

When we look to divine Mind for guidance, we find ourselves making intelligent decisions. Some years ago while driving across the plains of South Dakota with some friends, I had an experience which well illustrates this point. One of my companions was a person of many years' experience in Christian Science. A storm was gathering, and the winds began to blow tempestuously across the vast prairies. Suddenly, as we came over the top of a hill, I saw the road ahead obscured by a wall of dust and debris which was rushing violently across it. I started to apply the brakes, but instantly my friend voiced this imperative command: "Go forward! Our protection is in Mind."

As we went forward, the disturbance ahead dissipated, and when I looked in my rear vision mirror, I saw that the very condition I was trying to avoid had developed in the area where we would have stopped. There was no time to resort to human reason, but the omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence of intelligence were instantly demonstrated by one who was striving daily to follow the leadings of divine Mind. Years later I recognized that it was the voice of Christ, Truth, speaking through my friend, giving us the spiritual idea we needed for our protection.

"Whatever is governed by God is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life." Does not this statement by our Leader on page 215 of Science and Health give us a key to one way in which we may work to help solve the many distressing problems of the nations today? Where is God's government? It is right where God is. Everywhere! Can anyone really get outside of that government of Love? No. The spiritual fact is that right now "the light and might of intelligence and Life" are instantly available to every individual on this planet.

The iron curtains of fear, ignorance, and prejudice, which scholastic theology, dictatorship, materia medica, and so forth seem to have erected, must dissolve before the penetrating light of Truth. Wherever there appear to be enslaved mortals, right there the Christ-idea is supplying the truths which expose the enslaving lies and is providing mortals with the incentive and strength intelligently to resist and overcome them. The prayers of Christian Scientists which recognize the omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniaction of "the light and might of intelligence and Life," help to expose error in whatever field it may claim to operate, and thus bring it nearer its destruction.

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee," said Isaiah, one of the wisest of the prophets, over twenty-six hundred years ago (26:3). Today, through the understanding of God's nature which Christian Science has brought to mankind, the realization of this Biblical promise becomes scientifically possible. Mrs. Eddy states the same truth in these words (Science and Health, p. 184): "Controlled by the divine intelligence, man is harmonious and eternal." Thus the student of Christian Science who utilizes the light and might of intelligence—"the primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind"—will find a large measure of harmony for himself, and will be making a vital contribution to the unfoldment of peace for all mankind.