Article September 5, 1977 Issue

Timeless infinitude belongs to Mind

Overcoming the Tyranny of Time

EDGAR F. WRIGHT

Time was invented by mortals, but instead of serving them it often becomes a cruel and relentless tyrant. The limitations imposed by the belief of time impede, hinder, and slow down progress in untold ways. Time seems to tick away unrelentingly, encompassing the beliefs of human birth, growth, maturity, decay, death; it enters into all details of human existence. Mrs. Eddy defines "time" as "mortal measurements; limits, in which are summed up all human acts, thoughts, beliefs, opinions, knowledge; matter; error; that which begins before, and continues after, what is termed death, until the mortal disappears and spiritual perfection appears." Science and Health, p. 595;

God, Spirit, divine Mind, intelligence, cannot be limited by time, because God is infinite and infinity knows no time. The creation of man and the universe in seven days, as related in the book of Genesis, pictures the eternal completeness of spiritual ideas. Time has no place in spiritual ideas, because they always exist now. "Seven days" is a figure of speech suggesting the nowness, allness, and permanence of God. All that God created and blessed in those "seven days" was good and remains so. Mrs. Eddy writes: "The numerals of infinity, called seven days, can never be reckoned according to the calendar of time. These days will appear as mortality disappears, and they will reveal eternity, newness of Life, in which all sense of error forever disappears and thought accepts the divine infinite calculus." ibid., p. 520;

Christ Jesus' ministry affords proof of the utter nothingness of time. The records of his healings often contain the word "immediately." The Master saw man as God had made him. To the sick man at the pool of Bethesda he said, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." John 5:8; The Master did not argue either with the physical problem or with the length of time involved. This man had been suffering thirty-eight years. Jesus knew that his Father, God, was all-powerful, ever present; that He knew only now, the infinite present. Praying fully and often—living in the certainty of God's goodness— Jesus was ready for every call for help. The Apostle Paul expressed the same sense of immediate divine presence when he wrote to the Corinthians, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." II Cor. 6:2; This salvation from sin, illness, and mortality is available to us today, through our increased understanding of Jesus' example and the spiritual unfoldment of Christian Science. "Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibilities," Unity of Good, p. 11. Mrs. Eddy points out.

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