Article August 12, 1985 Issue

Human or divine inheritance?

ELIZABETH LOVE ROTHE

My mother and I were very close. I felt flattered when people would say, "You're so like your mother." She was a lovely individual, intelligent and capable. I wanted to be like her.

But sometimes my mother would comment on herself as being a "slow starter," and many mornings she voiced general discouragement. Later I found my mornings difficult, too. After I began to study Christian Science, I frequently pondered Mrs. Eddy's phrase "aggressive mental suggestion," which is a term for the false beliefs that suggest man is a mortal. I wondered, "Have I accepted my mother's morning despondency as part of my heritage? Wouldn't such acceptance be an example of aggressive mental suggestion?" I had liked thinking I had inherited my mother's good qualities, but what about the not-so-good? Could I choose to inherit my mother's good qualities but refuse the others? Certainly not, if I believed in human inheritance. I was stuck with a combination of the good and the bad.

Continuing my study of Christian Science, I began to understand what is meant in the first chapter of Genesis, where we are told that God created man in His own image.^{See Gen. 1:27 .} I began to comprehend that this truth of my God-created selfhood, deriving its inheritance from God alone, could be applied to my experience.

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