Understanding God Dispels Discord
How can one be rid of nagging problems? Do sickness, sin, and suffering have to be accepted as facts of life? Many sources offer solutions aimed at alleviating these problems, but there is only one source to which mankind can turn to have the causes of discord exposed as erroneous and at the same time learn how to be free from their false claims. This source is a right understanding of God as all-inclusive good, as the one infinite cause and creator of man and the universe.
Materially based wrong thinking is the origin of all sorrow and suffering. Spiritually based thinking ascribes all power, presence, and reality to God. This is right thinking—thinking that awakens consciousness to the divine reality of good and dispels discord. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says, "It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony." Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 390 ;
An individual endeavoring to put into practice his understanding of Christian Science is sometimes tempted to believe that a current problem has a different source than all the rest. Surely this one, he thinks, must have its origin in something other than ignorance of the true nature of God. However, Mrs. Eddy has set forth an immutable and irreversible rule of healing in the statement just quoted. This rule unequivocally exposes the fable of evil beliefs, helping us see that all discord, no matter what its material name or symptoms, is totally attributable to the absence of Godlike thought.
Thoughts enlarging on the belief that there is a power or presence besides God endanger one's expression of harmony. Spiritually unillumined thought may include vestiges of the erroneous claim that man is an inherent sinner, and therefore it is his lot to perpetually till the soil of suffering. But the truth of Christian Science comes to the rescue with Mrs. Eddy's declaration: "Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God's man." ibid., pp. 475-476 ;
Christ Jesus implied how he effected the healing of "one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb." He said, "If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you."Matt. 12:22, 28 ; "By the Spirit of God"! Because God is Spirit, there simply can't exist as a power or entity a sick spirit, a sinful spirit, a blind spirit. God is never sick or sinful; and the divine creation does not depart from the divine nature.
Jesus was able to restore harmony quickly through flawless understanding of the perfection and allness of the one divine Spirit, God, and man's unbroken relationship to Him. The scientific view of perfect God and perfect man, which constitutes the foundation of all healing in Christian Science, is available to all. Jesus said, "Every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." 7:8;
Striving to gain an unshakable understanding of one's God-given dominion over every false belief is what ensures one against failure or halfway success in demonstrating Christian Science. One doesn't have to settle for being only improved instead of perfectly well when the teachings of this Science are understandingly discerned and earnestly applied.
The freeing truth presented through Science to individuals in their warfare with the flesh is demonstrated as one understands that Truth is real, while all that would oppose God, Truth, is unreal. As long as we continue to equate disease, sin, and suffering with truth and reality, the battle will go on, and material methods offer at best only a temporary cease-fire to outbreaks of discord and calamity.
Mankind is blessed or cursed by what it worships. The urgent need today is for honest self-examination on the part of mankind to discover the correlation between the discords confronting it and the too prevalent desertion of Christlike motives, aims, and practices. It is never too late, however, for rectifying the errors of material sense. The spirit of good can be more universally kindled in the hearts and minds of men if those who abide in the spirit and understanding of scientific prayer will rally to the call to aid their fellowmen—if they will employ radical spiritual means and methods against the carnal mentality, which is devoid of actual power or divine authority. Mankind's thoughts are responsible for mankind's conditions, and vexing problems will continue so long as society continues to treat effects rather than causes.
In reality God is the one supreme cause governing all. Evil is only a fraudulent claimant to cause and effect. This counterfeiter, or mortal mind, can proceed no further with its mesmeric deceptions when exposed by an enlightened understanding of God's allness and oneness. This understanding begins to supplant the darkness of human ignorance of what God is and of the perfection He has already established for man. Christian Science helps us perceive the spiritual solution to every human need. It speaks to mankind as of old, "Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee." Job 22:21 ;
In Christian Science the means of demonstrating the unreality of any discord lies in one's efforts to assimilate and understand the rules of this instruction in righteousness. Blessings follow. Mrs. Eddy reminds students of this essential responsibility in the practice of dispelling discord through a growing understanding of God when she states, "Whosoever understands a single rule in Science, and demonstrates its Principle according to rule, is master of the situation." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 265 .
