Nothing Real Can Perish

Duncan Sinclair

Mortals believe in good and evil, truth and error, life and death, as if they were all equally real, with the result that they are often in a dilemma as to the present and the future. Time and again such questions as these will come to them: Will good and truth and life endure? Will evil persist? Will death continue as a scourge? And linked with these questions are the momentous ones, Will the life of man continue? Is it eternal, or will he perish even as the leaves of the tree? The change and decay which apparently beset mortal existence force themselves on mankind for recognition, and mankind in turn demands an explanation of, and an answer to, its perplexities.

Now, if men had but a clear understanding of reality, and, consequently, could distinguish between reality and unreality, their difficulties would in a large measure be resolved. How are they to obtain this understanding? Through Christian Science, which in the most explicit manner sets forth the nature of reality and draws the clearest possible line of demarcation between the real and the unreal.

What then is reality—that which is real? Christian Science declares that God and His creation constitute reality. And God it affirms to be infinite Spirit, Mind, Life, Truth, Love, divine Principle; while it reveals God's creation as the reflection of Himself. Moreover, Christian Science states that God is perfect, altogether good; and it maintains, as a necessary consequence, that creation—man and the universe—is likewise perfect, altogether good. Thus Christian Science makes known the profound truth that God and His creation—reality—are absolutely perfect, entirely good.

What must follow from the fact that God and His creation are perfect? That reality is incapable of destruction; that it is eternal. What could surpass the grandeur of this marvelous truth? And how wonderful, that we can realize it to some extent even now! Indeed, it is a mystery to material sense that, in the midst of the seeming phenomena of mortal existence, we can gain through spiritual sense a true understanding of reality, and begin consciously to dissociate our true spiritual selves from the unreal and perishable.

Whenever one has attained to some degree of understanding of God and His creation, man, he is in the position of being able to distinguish between the true creation and the false sense, or material concept, of creation. Since God is infinite Spirit or Mind, Spirit is the only real substance. Hence, what mortals call matter is unreal. In other words, Mind and Mind's ideas are real and are eternally enduring; whereas, so-called mortal mind with its material concepts—the objects of material sense—is mortal and temporal. And as the real man is the idea of Mind, the full expression or reflection of God, he is eternal. On page 353 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes: "All the real is eternal. Perfection underlies reality. Without perfection, nothing is wholly real." And a line or two farther on she adds the encouraging words, "When we learn that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, 'forgetting those things which are behind.' "

The battle, then, is with material sense or the carnal mind. Paul knew that; for he wrote to the church at Rome, "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." The great apostle to the Gentiles, with his enlightened understanding of reality, could actually predict the final destruction of death: his words to the church at Corinth were, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." He saw, even as Christian Science makes plain, that death is the result of materiality,—material thinking and acting,—and that it will be overcome, destroyed, through spiritual-mindedness, through thought that is imbued with spiritual truth.

To perceive, even in a small degree, that reality—the real—can never perish, is a foretaste of eternity. And how it disperses the gloom of sorrow which mortals experience when those they love pass from their ken! But nothing real can perish. The real man, our true spiritual selfhood, is as eternal as God Himself. It is only the false concept, the erroneous material sense of things, which can be destroyed, because it is unreal. Not a trace of what is good, true, lovable, spiritual, can ever perish. Surely men should strive to hasten the coming of the day when all shall know the truth about God and His creation, man, and be able to discard whatsoever in their thinking is erroneous, untrue, unreal. Christian Science will enable them to do this, thereby helping them to live better, purer, healthier lives, lives that conform more closely to real being. It is written in Revelation, "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son."

Duncan Sinclair

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