Editorial August 10, 1974 Issue

Getting Married

Geoffrey J. Barratt

What value do absolute spiritual truths have for those who are newly married or planning to be married? After all, Christian Science teaches the pure categorical truths of the nature of man, creation, relationships, life, doesn't it? It affirms that man is purely spiritual. That he lives as an idea in Mind rather than as a mortal in matter. It asserts that God, Spirit, is entirely all and that the unity of Spirit and its expression, man, is unbreakable.

If Science demanded that to be a Christian Scientist one must immediately shed every last vestige of belief in human living, then it would have to be admitted that Science could have only the most tenuous links, if any, with the situation of a newly married couple. However, Science demands spiritual growth based on developing understanding and sustained by adhering to divinely derived moral standards rather than to metaphysical contriving.

The effect of an understanding of pure reality is not the annihilation of human living but its progressive enrichment and finally its full yielding to the divine. "Emerge gently," Mrs. Eddy counsels us, "from matter into Spirit. Think not to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come naturally into Spirit through better health and morals and as the result of spiritual growth."^{Science and Health, p. 485;}