Article February 25, 1967 Issue

"No other consciousness"

PAUL H. EAMES

In the scientific record of creation as set forth in the first chapter of Genesis, God established the firmament to divide "the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament."^{Gen. 1:7;} According to Christian Science the firmament is spiritual understanding, with which we are able to distinguish between spiritual being and material existence. As our understanding increases concerning God as Spirit and man as His likeness, we cling less and less to materiality and seek to dwell more and more in spirituality, in the uplifted and enlightened consciousness in which we find all good—unbounded, real, eternal. "And God called the firmament Heaven."^{v. 8;}

Christian Science shows that spiritual understanding is important because it is the way to attain health and happiness; that it is necessary because it is the only sure means of escape from evil; that its scope affords us unlimited opportunities to apply it. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy explains, "When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness."^{Science and Health, p. 264;}

Christ Jesus needed no other consciousness. He realized that Life is Spirit; he understood that Spirit constitutes all substance, intelligence, power, identity, activity, and is the condition of all real existence. He taught that as men become aware of the facts of spiritual being, they escape from the illusions of material existence. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,"^{John 8:32;} he declared, and he demonstrated the effect of this truth-knowing, or spiritual consciousness. With it he freed the repentant woman from sin, released Bartimaeus from blindness, raised Lazarus from the grave. In these demonstrations a material sense of things was of no use to the Master; he needed no consciousness other than his reflection of the divine.