Oneness with God overcomes material codes

While reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, I have often paused to think deeply about Mary Baker Eddy’s description of Jesus of Nazareth as “the most scientific man that ever trod the globe.” And how he “plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause” (p. 313 ).

The prayer of Christian Scientists, while affirming that God is All-in-all, also addresses what we might call the mental landscape of human existence in order to prove God’s allness.

Many would agree that the landscape of thought today is vastly different from what it was 100 years ago. One of the primary reasons for this difference is technology. For example, it’s obvious that our mobile devices in a digitally connected Internet world are leagues beyond rudimentary telephones. Every form of modern technology touches every aspect of our lives, even if we don’t realize it. In many ways technology has changed the way we think. 

As someone who has spent decades developing and observing technological advances in the midst of this complex mental landscape, I have come to see how important it is to plunge “beneath the material surface of things.” And one aspect of what seems to be operating just beneath the surface is a concept we can call “codes.” In fact, the amazing technological progress of the last half-century has largely been made possible by codes—first, by computer codes, and second, by biological codes (DNA). 

Codes, in the sense we are considering them here, are simply a set of non-intelligent instructions to tell a computer what to do with information. For example, there are sets of codes that instruct your computer how to display a Web page (HTML) or manage a credit card transaction when you swipe your card at a store.

Biological codes, as understood by natural scientists, are a set of non-intelligent chemical instructions (DNA). These chemical instructions tell the various naturally occurring compounds that exist in the earth’s environment how to assemble themselves into living organisms. 

Is what is real and truly substantial actually in codes?

Codes are a part of the underlying false mental framework of what Mrs. Eddy called “mortal mind,” or the complex belief that a universe, including life and intelligence, can exist separate from and independent of God. In a sense, codes assert that they can define where we came from and what we are, and control how we interact and communicate. It’s easy for any of us to believe that these codes are really in operation because they work just beneath the surface of our thought. We naturally forget that even our own human frame—the material organism that we call our body and mind—is just the claim of codes in operation. We may, quite naturally, enjoy the similarities, for example, between parents and children—or brothers and sisters—and even the operation of our mobile phones and computers, all of which are outcomes of codes. But as we look around us, we can and should ask: Is what is real and truly substantial actually in codes?

It is not. God is not animated by human codes. He is not powered or constrained by them. He doesn’t grow from them. He doesn’t process them to make the universe operate. He isn’t damaged by them. He doesn’t even know them.

One infinite God brings forth everything that truly exists. In every detail, effortlessly and intelligently, divine Love enfolds everything that exists in Spirit, and divine Principle enforces the law of good throughout all consciousness—all without the use of codes. Mrs. Eddy wrote: “God is the lawmaker, but He is not the author of barbarous codes” (Science and Health, p. 381 ).

Material codes seem to bring forth both good and evil, both health and disease. Biological and computer sciences insist on defining every one of us according to our codes—predict what our problems will be, what we will buy, how we will behave, what kinds of diseases we will be subject to throughout our entire lives, and much more. In fact, to a degree much larger than the average person suspects, codes have already done this.

So, can the DNA code produce health and disease? Can the Internet, digital codes, produce good and evil? Can either of them reveal what and who we really are?

Divine Principle enforces the law of good throughout all consciousness—all without the use of codes.

DNA and computer codes that can, from the human standpoint, yield both good and bad effects, might also be viewed by human sense as what Mrs. Eddy described as “barbarous codes.” They can perpetrate evil and disease mindlessly, mechanically, by virtue of the instructions in the code. But God is not their author, and so, in reality, they have neither existence nor power at all. As Mrs. Eddy explained on that same page of Science and Health, “In infinite Life and Love there is no sickness, sin, nor death, and the Scriptures declare that we live, move, and have our being in the infinite God” (p. 381 ).

The very first chapter of Genesis eliminates the possibility of our evolving from material codes simply by saying, “So God created man in his own image” (verse 27 ). This image doesn’t include codes because they are not in the original. Codes began with the belief in dust (see Genesis 2:7 ).

While it’s evident that technological progress, and codes in particular, have been beneficial (and often detrimental) to humanity, the metaphysical fact remains that neither codes nor technology have power—even though the spiritual ideas beneath their surface are real and powerful and immediately present, right where the technology seems to be and to operate. We are constantly required to plunge beneath the material surface of things to see and evaluate, scientifically, what technology really is. Doing so prevents us from being mesmerized, controlled, or manipulated by it.

Recognizing the underlying claims of codes doesn’t mean, of course, that we cannot or should not use technology. It’s an integral, inescapable part of modern living. Yet, while the claim may be that humanity is derived from codes and is practically controlled by them, even so, in reality, in Spirit, nothing depends on material codes. If it did, we’d be forced to conclude that God operates like a computer or a DNA molecule, and it’s just not possible that infinite Mind could be limited in this way.

Nothing real or spiritual is dependent on material codes, and a prayerful realization of this fact can free the thought of everyone, everywhere, to some degree, from the broad and often hidden activity of codes, because in our oneness with God, we are not created by, dependent on, or touched by any form of material code at all.