Editorial August 14, 1978 Issue

Inheritances and family harmony

Nathan A. Talbot

As helpful as legal procedures are in preparing wills and establishing provisions for inheritances, such procedures are not always enough. Even when the best planned human steps are taken in providing for the distribution of property, heirs may disagree. Sometimes there are unfortunate disruptions in family relationships. The teachings of Christian Science never lead the individual to avoid a need to confront and resolve specific human problems. Its teachings of God and man—of ultimate reality—show how to heal difficulties.

The reason inheritances sometimes lead to family inharmony is that an inheritance is thought to grow out of an individual's death. Now, that observation might sound strangely obvious to someone who is not a Christian Scientist. But an understanding that true inheritance comes from Life, God, rather than death, carries a profoundly healing impact. This spiritual fact can remove even longstanding antagonisms that have resulted from disagreement over an inheritance.

Human existence is premised on a birth-death process. But this so-called existence is a mistaken view of what man is—and of his relationship to God. Each one of us must come to understand fully, either here or at some point hereafter, that God is Life. We must begin to love the fact that Father-Mother Life is providing man—Life's spiritual idea—with uninterrupted continuity of being. In an ultimate and final sense, this is our true treasure; the goodness and perfection supplied by God are our genuinely substantial inheritance. In Proverbs we read of divine wisdom, "I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment: that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures."^{Prov. 8:20,21;}

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