Article June 26, 1976 Issue

Seeing Good Is Good Seeing

SARA VELTMAN TUCKER

In its revolutionary revelation as to the character and nature of man, Christian Science throws clear light on the subject of sight. In order that sight may be seen as it really is, man's nature as the expression of God must be understood in the Science that reveals it.

Mrs. Eddy gives us seven definitive, synonymous terms that reveal the nature and essence of God: Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind, Principle. Man expresses the qualities that show forth the nature of God as defined by these seven synonyms. He expresses the intelligence of Mind, the purity of Love, the orderliness of Principle, the eternality of Life. Soul, man's true consciousness, includes the spiritual sense of sight. This spiritual sense is never confined in matter. It is not subject to deterioration, disease, or diminution. Reflecting spiritual sight, man sees the infinitude of good that is God's creation. He beholds the limitless beauties and harmony that constitute his spiritual environment, and he rejoices in the loveliness of all that he sees, or spiritually discerns. All of this is true, notwithstanding the sight problems to which mankind seems subject.

Difficulties in seeing among humans derive not only from the belief that sight is confined to material eyes and is therefore subject to the inevitable limitations of matter, but from the belief that man is himself materially mortal, capable of seeing evil as well as good. In this sense the question of eyesight becomes a theological, rather than a physical, problem. Mrs. Eddy writes: "Scholastic dogma has made men blind. Christ's logos gives sight to these blind, ears to these deaf, feet to these lame,—physically, morally, spiritually. Theologians make the mortal mistake of believing that God, having made all, made evil; but the Scriptures declare that all that He made was good."^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 362;}