This article is part of a series appearing occasionally in the Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal, and The Herald of Christian Science. Each article aims to correct some misconception about Christian Science that would keep us from having the results we so desire as spiritual healers.

Christian Science, discovered by Mary Baker Eddy, is Christian in that it is entirely based on the teachings of Christ Jesus. And it is scientific in that it has an internal logic that is consistent and provable. 

What could be called a Christian theological vocabulary had already been established by the time of Eddy’s discovery. Eddy felt led to redefine spiritually a number of the basic terms of this theology, such as God, Christ, and sin. One term whose meaning she totally reversed is the word substance. A standard dictionary definition of substance gives us, “a particular kind of matter with uniform properties,” or “the real physical matter of which a person or thing consists and which has a tangible, solid presence” (Google Dictionary).