Guest Editorial February 9, 2015 Issue

The disappearance of the claims of matter

Mary Alice Rose

It’s wonderful how a turn of phrase or a fresh reading of a familiar passage can bring new metaphysical insights to our study of the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. In an article entitled “Scientific Theism” (see Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, pp. 216–219), Mary Baker Eddy addresses the concept of cause and effect. The article emphasizes the fact that divine Science is rooted in the biblical definition of God as infinite Spirit, and therefore that God’s creation, man and the universe, must in reality be spiritual rather than material, regardless of the arguments of physical sense—since infinite Spirit cannot create its opposite, matter.

Again, emphasizing that God is Spirit, Mrs. Eddy writes in this article, “The nature of God must change in order to become matter, or to become both finite and infinite; and matter must disappear, for Spirit to appear” (p. 217). The italics are Mrs. Eddy’s, and even though I had read this article any number of times, that text style choice was precisely the thing that brought this statement into clearer metaphysical focus for me.

The word disappear describes something fading from view, much as a mirage dissolves as one gets closer to the perceived phenomenon and perspective changes. But as I thought about where Mrs. Eddy says “disappear,” it awakened in me a significantly different sense. God being Spirit, and God being All-in-all, Spirit is infinite and leaves no room for matter. Spirit and its infinite manifestation, including man, is the only cause and effect. Then how can matter be actual or substantial? Nothing real can be separate from or opposite to God, however much we might currently believe it is. I saw that when we give up that false belief, no phenomenon resulting from such a belief can appear in the first place. This was a marvelous revelation!

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