Christ Jesus said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). He did not say that we would become perfect but that we are perfect. Mary Baker Eddy writes: "Truth is immortal; error is mortal. Truth is limitless; error is limited. Truth is intelligent; error is non-intelligent. Moreover, Truth is real, and error is unreal. This last statement contains the point you will most reluctantly admit, although first and last it is the most important to understand" (Science and Health, p. 466).

In Sunday School classes the question usually comes up, "But where did error come from?" A mathematics analogy we are all familiar with has always helped me better understand how to answer this question. We can perhaps explore this analogy in more detail by making an allegory of it—the allegory of the new Christian Science mathematician.

The allegory

One day, a math student notices that, somehow, 2+2=5 has appeared on the blackboard, written in chalk. Somewhat alarmed, he asks himself, "Where did this error come from?"

He has been learning to reason in Christian Science terms, but, nevertheless, thinks: "Well, that wrong statement certainly seems to be there, since I can see it on the blackboard. I could even take a picture of it. I'm concerned that it could mess up my sense of harmony, order, and math-security, and could throw my whole frame of thought and mathematical order into chaos.

"I know that math itself is theoretically perfect, but here before my eyes is this error. It seems so real and tangible and powerful."

The student continues in thought: "Let's see. What could have caused this? Was it because I didn't study hard enough? Or maybe I haven't been good? I must be guilty of something, because there's the error, real and powerful. Why, it's messing up my whole life!"

The student decides to call a Christian Science mathematician for help. "Help!" he exclaims. "My equations are all messed up, and I guess it's because I haven't been good. I don't seem to understand enough math to change the chalk, and it's hurting me."

The Christian Science math-practitioner listens quietly to his student's fears and replies, "But there's no truth in it. The principle of math never made it! The material senses' chalk-evidence cannot testify to the truth of math in any way. 2+2=5 has never actually happened! And it has no power to make you think it has occurred. If you believe that it can happen, or has happened, then it can only seem to have one power, and that is the power not to work, which is not a real power at all.

"But you don't have to believe in it, since it's not true now and never was true. It has only the illusory power of 'not working,' because it is incorrect. And only a mistaken belief in its reality can even seem to give it the pretense of power."

"But it looks so real," the student responds.

"There is no truth in the chalk marks," the practitioner-mathematician replies. "The principle of math has never made such a mistake, has never allowed such a mistake, and is always perfect and unerring. Why, if the principle of math could change and allow mistakes, there would be no principle to prove. The math is never in the chalk, and the math is never anything but perfect always."

"OK then," says the student, "where did the error come from?"

"It never happened. You can only get evidence of an error from the chalk, and that's the mistake. Neither chalk, nor a pencil, nor any testimony from the physical senses, can bear witness to the truth of math-being, which is spiritual, mental, and perfect.

"The very belief in the reality of a mistake originates from accepting that the chalk can give reliable information, or that unlimited math can ever be in a limited chalk form. A mistake is not an idea that you can 'understand,' because it's not true. The fact that you can never explain how such a mistake occurred actually proves its unreality, because you cannot find a cause for something that is not true. How can one find such a cause if something is not true and therefore not real?"

The practitioner-mathematician continues: "When you see that mathematics, in reality, never allows any mistakes, and has never allowed any, you'll see that by that very fact mistakes are not true. And even where the mistake in the chalk-evidence seems to be, perfect math is right there instead! You can never be outside math's perfect working, because it is unlimited and always present in its only state, perfection!"

"You mean," the student asks, "if, in my thinking, I get rid of the chalk-evidence of things as having anything to do with reality, I can make 2+2=4?"

"No, the truth is already true. 2+2 always has been, is right now, and ever will be 4. Math has never let any of its numbers get out of harmony, and never will. Its number-ideas are always unique, perfect, and eternal, having existed in harmony forever, never being created or destroyed."

"But I created the 2 when I put it down on the blackboard, didn't I?"

"No," the math-practitioner answers. "The real 2 can never be humanly created or destroyed. It is an immortal idea of math and expresses math in its own unique way, just as all the other numbers do. Neither the present Arabic numeral 2 you put up on the blackboard, nor different symbols for 2 used down through history, have ever been anything but a limited way of looking at the real 2. The real, perfect 2 of math has always existed—it never evolved—and will always exist, because mathematics requires all the numbers to complete its infinite expression. And you can only express this perfect order of being because it is the only reality of the situation."

As the math student turns away from the blackboard and the chalk-evidence, the unchanged reality of 2+2=4 dawns on him. He sees that he does not have to manipulate the chalk; this would never really correct the situation. Nor does he have to learn to cope with the error or adjust to it; that would not correct anything, either. Truth comes to him as a deep realization that 2+2 has always been, and ever will be, perfectly and exactly 4, and that the math is never dependent on the chalk in any way.

"Perfect as always," the math-practitioner says. "You don't need to check with the chalk. It must follow your understanding. You are free!"

"I feel like a new mathematician," the student says, and so he is.

"I feel the harmony and perfection of math all around. Why, it's everywhere, isn't it, and always has been!"

Later, when he walks by the class blackboard, he notices that 2+2=4 is written on it. "It's not the math that's changed," he thinks aloud. The chalk appears to have been "fixed," but now he knows that the chalk evidence can never testify to the truth of math or affect the order of numbers in any way. Only the principle of mathematics can ever have any effect on its orderly numbers, and it has never changed or needed correction.

Epilogue

By looking at the metaphysics of this little math allegory, we find that there's no such thing as a real error, and therefore what is not true cannot be real, can never be real. What is true is always true. And this can apply in a very practical way to our approach to healing.

The inability to explain error, or the material-sense view of anything, is actually the very proof of its unreality, and this truth can be applied to any erroneous belief to produce healing—that is, to see the perfection of being that has always been there. The realization of the perfection of God as the one and only Principle of the universe, and of man as His only and perfect expression, has exactly the same healing effect, for it reveals what is always true. Like math problems, this is not healing in the "fixing" sense; rather, it is healing in the "knowing" sense. Healing in Christian Science is correcting thought; it is realizing the perfection that is already there.

This must have been the way Christ Jesus and his followers could heal instantaneously. True healing is really always instantaneous, even if it seems to take time for us to realize, because it expresses what has already been true all along about each of us. I tell my Sunday School students that this is the reason Christian Science is a science—actually the Science—because it unerringly reveals the true nature of reality itself, perfect as always.

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