Article August 24, 1968 Issue

Permissiveness

OLGA COSSI

The subject of permissiveness touches current problems of government, law, education, and home. Concerned citizens are caught between the desire to accord to each individual his full human dignity and freedom and the need to restrain those who abuse individual dignity and freedom. Christian Science can be of great help in resolving this conflict through a purely spiritual definition of God and man as a basis for action.

A mere definition may hardly seem a solution to such deep concern. Yet students of Christian Science have found that what one knows of God and man can literally make all the difference in the world in daily experience. The individual faced with the problem of apparent evil can be guided into wise corrective action if he is fortified with the basic spiritual concept of God and man.

This spiritual concept was taught by Christ Jesus and is the basic concept of Christian Science, or the Science of Christ. It was stated by the Master in his words, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."^{Matt. 5:48;} Christian Science amplifies this thought of perfect God and perfect man. In the textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, God is declared to be divine Mind, the all-knowing Father, the omnipresent Principle, Love. The man He creates is acknowledged to be His idea, His image and likeness. Mrs. Eddy states, "Man's genuine selfhood is recognizable only in what is good and true."^{Science and Health, p. 294;}