Article August 18, 1973 Issue

Apprehension, Comprehension, Retention, Expression

HAL M. FRIESEN

Have you ever considered how helpful it would be to learn faster? To understand better, remember more, express yourself more clearly? Christian Science offers a practical approach based on divine Mind, or God, the only source of intelligence and ability, to accomplish all these things.

To believe intelligence to be in a matter brain—subject to hereditary limitations, accidents, age, and deterioration—is to place one's capabilities in jeopardy at the very outset. Matter offers no basis for promise or stability on this subject. On the other hand, to accept man's intelligence as proceeding from a spiritual origin— as a conscious expression or reflection of the one basic, causative Mind, or God—is to perceive man's intelligence in terms of unlimited capacity and accuracy. To accept the spiritual basis is to classify man as the very image and likeness of God's all-knowing and all-wise ability.

Apprehension, or one's ability to grasp or perceive a thing or a fact—is usually associated with the five material senses. These, however, are undependable sources for reliable thoughts and may constitute an avenue to bondage and ignorance. They cannot give us the clear meaning of anything. One must learn to apprehend spiritually. Mrs. Eddy states: "Mortal thought does not at once catch the higher meaning, and can do so only as thought is educated up to spiritual apprehension. To a certain extent this is equally true of all learning, even that which is wholly material." ^{Science and Health, p. 349;}

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

SPIRITUALIZING THOUGHT

Through patience understood