Article January 1, 1955 Issue

RIGHT REASONING

L. PRESCOTT PLATT

To reason correctly one must start with the truth of existence. That the truth is the source of practical freedom was stated centuries ago by the great Master, Christ Jesus, when he said (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." It is not difficult for mankind to accept this proposition; but mankind's concept of the truth has been vague because its reasoning has been based on a wrong premise. The un-Christlike thinker, regardless of his intellectual capacity, has for the most part based his reasoning on the premise of a material God and a mortal man. He has been willing to admit the perfection of God. However, with respect to man, he has considered him as a combination of good and evil qualities and as confined to a limited, material body. This, too, in spite of the fact that the first chapter of Genesis plainly states that man is made in God's image and likeness.

While Jesus fully demonstrated man's perfection, it was not until the advent of Christian Science that the basis of this demonstration was adequately explained. Through her Christlike spirituality Mary Baker Eddy arrived at the conclusion that right reasoning can be based on nothing short of absolute spiritual perfection. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy says (p. 492): "For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence. In reality there is no other existence, since Life cannot be united to its unlikeness, mortality."

Man's spiritual identity, including love, purity, honesty, and other qualities of infinite Mind, has no connection with a physical body. Indeed, the material body is only a false concept of man's true spiritual identity. This personalized concept is described in the second chapter of Genesis as the man formed of "the dust of the ground."

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