The Unreality of Matter

One of the most challenging facts that Christian Science presents to the world is the unreality of matter. It declares that matter is not true substance. And it presents the fact that actual substance is Spirit, divine Mind, or God. It explains that the substance of all reality is the Mind that creates it, the divine Principle that gives life to all its manifestations. Whatever does not reflect this divine source does not have the status of reality. Mrs. Eddy says, "Intelligent Spirit, Soul, is substance, far more impregnable and solid than matter; for one is temporal, while the other is eternal, the ultimate and predicate of being." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 103;

An understanding of the substance of Spirit, the substance of good, gives one the ability to heal the ills of the flesh and to prove the unreality of sin, disease, and death. Through this understanding one can see that matter and material conditions are the expression of false thought, false mentality, and hence are subject to the spiritual understanding that regenerates human consciousness. Material sense evidence is nothing more than projected belief and is eradicated when the belief is altered by the truth. This is why understanding prayer affects the whole range of ills from the organic to the functional. Christ Jesus understood the unreality of matter and the substance of Spirit, and this understanding gave him dominion over material conditions.

Some philosophers have approached the idea of the unreality of matter, offering the theory that it is in some sense the product of thought only; but they have never arrived at the true sense of substance as Spirit, or God. Hence their theories are not demonstrable. It is only as one arrives at the right idea of substance that he can prove his dominion over the false sense. It is only through spiritual understanding that one can master the evidence of the physical senses.

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Church Center
March 25, 1967
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