Article April 8, 2019 Issue

You’re not a counterfeit; you’re the real you!

Amy Humphries

When I was five, I desperately wanted a certain pair of sandals, but my mom said no. Determined not to be denied, I decided that I would make my own sandals out of the materials I had on hand: wrapping paper, tape, and staples. While this spirit of resourcefulness may have been commendable, the final product, as you can imagine, lacked functionality and substance. Falling far short of the original, my paper sandals just weren’t the real thing.

I thought of this recently when considering something Christian Science teaches: that matter and divine Spirit cannot both be real and substantial. Because God is All and God is Spirit, only Spirit can be real and can have true substance. Matter falls so completely short of Spirit that it is simply unreal.

In the Bible, the first chapter of Genesis explains that God created man in His image and likeness, which is spiritual and completely good. In the second chapter there is another creation account that doesn’t sync with the first one: God is falsely represented as creating mortal man, who is subject to self-contradictory material laws of health and happiness as well as the suffering that results from breaking these so-called laws.

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