"THE SCIENTIFIC MAN AND HIS MAKER ARE HERE"

Harold Molter

When we went to school, we had to do many exercises in multiplication, division, addition, subtraction. These exercises involved abstract figures and, in themselves, held nothing of practical value for us, except perhaps mental satisfaction or relief when we found the right answers. But later in life we were grateful for these exercises if we had to make change, or tend store, or make a dress, or balance a checkbook, or carry on any number of human activities involving numbers. If we had not learned the basic facts of mathematics, we could not solve many of the practical problems which present themselves to us each day.

In the practice of Christian Science it is necessary to know the spiritual facts and laws of Truth, Life, and Love. These facts and laws may seem abstract to us when we read them as revealed in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Among these basic truths we learn in Science that the perfect God, or divine Mind, includes within Himself all creation—countless individual ideas, each reflecting or expressing the individuality of the creator. All of these ideas are eternal, perfect, spiritual.

Now someone may say that this picture of a perfect creator and a perfect creation—a universe of countless spiritual ideas—is beautiful to contemplate. It is like the abstract truths of mathematics. But how does it help one who is suffering from human problems, such as lack, fear, sickness, separation? How can the truths of Christian Science correct and eliminate these errors through its claim that creation is wholly spiritual?

The answer is clear. When we have to make a decision, or find a new position, or solve a problem in business or in the home, or when we are faced with physical discord, we look to the spiritual truths of Christian Science. We welcome them and hold fast to them, and they enlighten human consciousness. As this spiritual enlightenment occurs, the false beliefs of mortal mind are given up and replaced by spiritual concepts. The result? Sickness gives place to health; lack to plenty; inharmonious human relationships to harmonious associations; sorrow to joy; stagnation to progress. In other words, false concepts of existence are replaced by spiritual ideas, and this improved mental condition results in improved human conditions.

Supported by the inspired Bible teachings, Christian Science reveals that the so-called material universe in all its manifestations and conditions is but a mass of false beliefs about Spirit and its ever-present ideas. These beliefs are without real or enduring form, presence, or reality. Christian Science declares that a sick or a well material man, a successful or unsuccessful business, a prosperous or a poverty-stricken man or home, a world at war, are not actually material realities. They are, in fact, material beliefs—material concepts without real substance.

Jesus, our great Way-shower, healed sickness and sin, and performed other mighty works, through his denial of the evidence of material sense and his acceptance only of the spiritual facts of creation. The result was always healing and human betterment.

Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 264): "Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being. Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit." Christian Science enables us to use this spiritual microscope. Any material testimony examined in the light of the truths of Christian Science disappears, and through spiritual sense we prove that the real objects or ideas of God's creation are at hand.

Mrs. Eddy describes any material testimony as error. And she also declares that this testimony can always be proved unreal and be replaced by a spiritual truth, a statement of reality maintained in thought. Therefore, when error whispers to anyone, "I am sick," or when someone says that he is burdened by some physical or mental discord, it is his privilege to insist that the discord apparently confronting him is not real. He can turn to Christian Science and find the true, the real concept of creation.

In any situation the Christian Scientist realizes that there are never two kinds of man—a material person and a spiritual idea. There is only one man, the infinite idea of Spirit including all perfect ideas. In her book "Unity of Good" Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 46): "I do not deny, I maintain, the individuality and reality of man; but I do so on a divine Principle, not based on a human conception and birth. The scientific man and his Maker are here; and you would be none other than this man, if you would subordinate the fleshly perceptions to the spiritual sense and source of being."

In support of the celestial nature of all real being, St. Paul writes (Rom. 8:16, 17), "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."

Harold Molter

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit