Article October 4, 1975 Issue

Improving Our Concept of the Body

Paul N. Stedman

How does a Christian Scientist maintain a proper perspective on the body, which he has to feed, clothe, and provide with shelter? These provisions seem to be material things; in taking care of them is he merely supplying a material body?

The Apostle Paul tells us, "We are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord." And, "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."^{II Cor. 5:6, 8;} These words suggest that we do not, in truth, live in the body and that material things are of no real use to spiritual being. It is natural to conclude that Spirit, God, did not create material things. Spirit is the only creator.

All is really Spirit and its spiritual manifestation. We gain the correct sense of things as we understand Mrs. Eddy's statement: "Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul."^{Science and Health, p. 269;}