Article March 5, 1984 Issue

The body: master or servant?

VIRGINIA T. GUFFIN

When we think of individuals we genuinely love, we're quick to perceive that the tenderness, intelligence, dependability, joy, honesty, and so on they express, and not their physical appearance, make them what they are. Although people see this in a general way, they often fail to see that man's true being is wholly spiritual and not physical at all; that it is governed by Spirit, God, and not by physical conditions.

The opposite belief that we are mortals subject to physicality, which determines our health and intelligence, is so widely held that going against the tide of this popular misconception requires a vigorous rebuttal. And that is just what Christian Science provides in teaching that matter has neither substance, power, nor intelligence. Therefore matter, being nothing, can't make man sick or well, young or old, symmetrical or deformed. It doesn't give man the ability to see, hear, move, understand, or remember. These abilities originate in divine Mind, God, and are maintained by Mind. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "To understand that Mind is infinite, not bounded by corporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for sound or sight nor upon muscles and bones for locomotion, is a step towards the Mind-science by which we discern man's nature and existence."^{Science and Health, p. 84.}

We can challenge and reverse the belief that life and intelligence are in matter and depend on matter, a belief that limits human health and abilities. Christian Scientists for over a hundred years have been proving in some degree that the physical body is not man, that man is not so many inches and pounds of bones, organs, and so on. True individuality is in spiritual qualities, which have nothing to do with physicality.

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