Article September 8, 1980 Issue

No parasites

BÉATRICE LABARTHE

Christian Science can help one who is struggling with parasites or with a parasitic disease. One fundamental claim that needs to be disproved in these cases is that being is organic and that some organisms can attach themselves to other organisms, causing discord and destruction. There are powerful truths that heal such conditions. But we must acknowledge these truths to be the governing facts of being in order to find practical help.

What are these truths? Life, God, is self-created and entirely self-sufficient. Being All, He is Himself, of Himself, and depends on nothing else. All truth of being flows from Him, and God's all-harmonious creation is at one with God. Man, God's offspring, cannot be host to anything destructive.

"At the beginning God expressed himself" is J. B. Phillips's paraphrase of the opening words of John: "In the beginning was the Word."^{John 1:1;} God, divine Love, expresses His own nature in man, His idea. The scientific relationship of God and man can't be disturbed by parasitic beliefs. Nor is man's dependence on God parasitic, since man performs a necessary, positive function: he expresses God. This law of usefulness applies to all of God's creation.