THE INVISIBLE REAL

Until human thought is instructed by Christian Science, the effect of the physical senses is to dominate consciousness and to fill it with material impressions and sensations. One's daily life is likely to be involved largely with matter and with its interests and demands. But through Science the invisible things of Spirit, God, come to fill one's thought to the gradual exclusion of material concerns. Matter and its conditions are seen to be nothing more than transitory modes of thinking, which give way to unseen spiritual truths. The invisible ideas of God become real and substantial to the scientific thinker, who understands the unreality of the material and the power of the spiritual over it.

Moses was such a thinker, as the writer of Hebrews implied when he said of him (11:27 ), "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible."

Moses' perception of the unseen God and His law-governed kingdom gave him courage to start mankind on the upward course of moral integrity and accounted for the power over the visible which he exhibited.

We need often to ponder the vast, invisible realm of Spirit, if we are to determine to what degree we are aware of spiritual ideas and their intelligent dominion over evil and matter. Thoughtful contemplation of the unseen good about us rouses us to realize that the kingdom of God is nearer than we think.

Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 264 ), "As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation which before were invisible, will become visible." And in the next paragraph we find this sentence: "Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being."

Human concepts—our bodies, homes, churches, as well as our environment—are in harmony with God in the measure that the invisible formations of Spirit that these concepts represent become real and tangible to us through spiritual discernment. Eventually the limited material concepts that fill thought will disappear, because the eternal realities of being will assert their power over whatever is temporal.

Corollary to the discernment of the invisible realities of Spirit is the growing awareness of the invisible forces of mortal mind, which claim to produce material concepts. In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes of the mighty angel which John describes in the tenth chapter of Revelation. She says (p. 559 ): "This angel had in his hand 'a little book,' open for all to read and understand. Did this same book contain the revelation of divine Science, the 'right foot' or dominant power of which was upon the sea,—upon elementary, latent error, the source of all error's visible forms?" Until we detect the fundamental mental states that underlie evil material phenomena, we lack the dominion of spiritual understanding over matter.

Christian Science deals with fundamental elements of thought, and this is what gives it power. As long as one deals with good and evil only in their human or relative aspects, reckoning them in comparative degrees, he is incapable of proving the complete dominion of God over evil phenomena. Absolute invisible good must be applied to elementary invisible error, because it is in this metaphysical realm that real cause destroys the supposition of an evil cause in opposition to good, or God. Until one learns to overcome elementary basic error, his work as a metaphysician is ineffective.

Christ Jesus taught men to recognize the invisible kingdom of Spirit and to demonstrate its power. He said to Nicodemus (John 3:8 ), "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." And we find these words in Science and Health (p. 78 ): "Spirit blesses man, but man cannot 'tell whence it cometh.' By it the sick are healed, the sorrowing are comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are the effects of one universal God, the invisible good dwelling in eternal Science."

According to Christian Science, there are not two creations, a spiritual universe and a material one, but one alone—the spiritual. What appears to the senses as matter is nothing more than mortal mind's ignorant misconception of spiritual truths. To rid oneself of misconceptions, one must rid himself of the lying mind that presents them to his thought. And he does this by clinging to the truth of Spirit and its invisible kingdom.

The Master's steadfast insistence that Spirit is the only creator gave him power over his seeming material environment. His pure perception of invisible reality caused deformity, dementia, infection, and even death to disappear from his view. His loyalty to the kingdom of heaven gave him full dominion over the limitations of matter. He was a law unto himself because he understood the power of the real over the unreal.

Jesus was our Exemplar. As we follow him in spirit and express the Christliness of real manhood, we shall see what he saw, shall know what he knew, shall heal as he healed. And we shall eventually prove that man dwells securely in heaven, in the realm of invisible good, where matter and evil are not known.