In the Christian Science Bible Lesson June 11, 2012 Issue

Rely on spiritual reasoning

For the lesson titled "Is the Universe, Including Man, Evolved by Atomic Force?" from June 11-17, 2012

Maya Dietz—Boston, Massachusetts

This week’s Bible Lesson, titled “Is the Universe, Including Man, Evolved by Atomic Force?” made me wonder if it was ironic that the illusive particle that physicists think gives mass (substance) to matter was nicknamed by the media, “the God particle.” It depends on one’s worldview. Some theological traditions argue that earth is an exact mirror image of heaven, others that the earth is a cosmic error, or that heaven is distant and irrelevant. Most contemporary worldviews compartmentalize religion and science, or posit a radical pantheism, in which God is in everything. Ultimately, these are all perspectives that rely on a dualistic understanding of life, in which both spirit and matter are real, requiring only that we figure out how they relate.

Mary Baker Eddy rejected dualism completely. She wrote: “For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence. In reality there is no other existence, since Life cannot be united to its unlikeness, mortality” (Science and Health, p. 492). This Lesson challenges us to identify the dualistic arguments that have become embedded in our cultures, and rely on spiritual reasoning instead. 

With all the methods for analyzing matter, one still cannot know what it is and how it works.