Article September 19, 2016 Issue

What’s your perception of being?

Ali Ziesler

There is a paragraph that is read every week at the close of the Christian Science Sunday church service and Sunday School. It is a foundational element in the study and practice of Christian Science and supports one’s ability to exercise dominion over any problem, such as disease or sin. It is “the scientific statement of being” found on page 468 of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.  

Mary Baker Eddy referred to “the scientific statement of being” as “my first plank in the platform of Christian Science” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 21), and it reads: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.”

This statement, which denounces the belief that matter is the substance of life, differentiates Christian Science from all other belief systems, in science or religion, and to most of the world it is a revolutionary statement. With matter as the seeming source of joy and pleasure, the seeming symbol of prestige and wealth, the seeming reward for which we work, would one want to take an opposing view? 

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