Article January 23, 1978 Issue

Man's present immortality

RICHARD CLAUDE HAW

The mesmeric belief that everybody must "pass on" in order to reach immortality is contrary to the theology of Christ Jesus and of Christian Science. Jesus taught and proved, through his raising of others and of himself, that death—including its preliminaries called disease, decay, or disaster—is illegitimate and is to be overcome. To Jesus, ascension, not resurrection, was the ultimate goal. Can we aim at anything less than supplanting the death process? The Bible states, "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son,"I John 5:11; while Jesus himself prayed unequivocally, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."John 17:3;

People hold diverse views of the possibility and even the desirability of eternal life. Materialists look with foreboding on the prospect of what to them would be a boring existence in an endless sweetness and light, or life without sensual pleasures. Some people don't believe there's anything beyond the grave. But Christian Science reveals eternal life, not in terms of an indefinite extension of mere existence but as a glorious adventure, wherein man lives to express the fullness of God's eternal attributes and qualities, forever unfolding in infinite variety, bliss, joy, beauty, goodness, and fulfillment.

How can we reach this conscious awareness of man's present immortality? Certainly not through the natural sciences' researches into the origin of material life (organized matter), nor through any theological illusions of an Adamic creation of mortals who must die in order to reach heaven or hell.

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