Article May 1, 1965 Issue

Scientific Self-denial

NEIL KENSINGTON ADAM

All enlightened religions commend self-denial, and indeed right self-denial is a necessary step towards salvation. But the old-fashioned view that self-denial involves a restricted mode of life, with the giving up of many normal human activities and pleasures, perhaps in the hope of gaining a fuller life hereafter, is far from what Christian Science teaches. Real self-denial is expansive, not restrictive; it opens the way to more abundant life, greater opportunities, and improved ability.

The first chapter of Genesis says (verse 27), "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes (p. 470), "Man is the expression of God's being." We know that God's being is Spirit, infinite intelligence, present here and now and all-powerful, the source of unlimited satisfaction and joy. The real man, the image, or expression, of God, posesses and can experience only the divine qualities. These are fundamental truths, which Christian Scientists have to demonstrate in daily living and in healing.

Human beings, however, often seem very far from the image and likeness of perfect Mind, Life, and Love, which is God; but with the aid of Christian Science they can begin and continue to put off the mortal and put on the immortal, perfect man, who is this image. They can do this through knowing the truth of man and denying anything in the seeming human selfhood which is unlike the divine.

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