Finding All in God

Clifford P. Smith

A psalm writer had said (Psalms 18:32), "It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect." The Master had taught (Matthew 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Paul had given this further explanation (Acts 17:28): "For in him we live, and move, and have our being." Then Mrs. Eddy formulated a mode of mental practice consistent with these quoted statements (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 6): "Mind governs all. That we exist in God, perfect, there is no doubt, for the conceptions of Life, Truth, and Love must be perfect; and with that basic truth we conquer sickness, sin, and death."

Mrs. Eddy put the foregoing precept in almost these words into the first number of The Christian Science Journal, issued in 1883, and she gave it a permanent circulation as part of "Miscellaneous Writings" in 1896; but the adaptable and simple mode of mental practice to which it points still deserves more attention and use by Christian Scientists than it has yet received. Perhaps the very simplicity of declaring that we have anything and everything that is real in God has kept us from appreciating this manner of mental speech. Among her further statements of the same "basic truth," is the following in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 513): "The intelligence, existence, and continuity of all individuality remain in God, who is the divinely creative Principle thereof."

God is the Principle, the Mind, the Spirit, the Soul of man. Each of us can say of his real selfhood: In absolute reality, man exists and acts in God, perfectly equipped and qualified for living and for every good work. In Him man has every detail and item of infinite being, completely and perfectly designed for righteous enjoyment and use. Infinite causation, acting through divine law, is giving to man now all the ability and power that can be needed or used. Man has perfect consciousness in God; also perfect discernment, intelligence, wisdom; also every ability, faculty, quality, and power truly adapted to the reflection by man of infinite good.

Such truths as those instanced by the foregoing paragraph can be expressed mentally and prayerfully, the expression always adapted to the particular occasion or reason for prayer or treatment. Then in the degree that a spiritually-minded person declares the absolute facts of being pertaining to his human need, and realizes the truth of such facts, he fulfills the law and invokes the power by which, as Mrs. Eddy said, "Mind governs all." To the same extent, therefore, the facts thus declared and enforced constitute his human experience and give character to his human life, displacing any different or opposite semblance which may have appeared to hold sway.

In the practice of Christian Science, the practitioner is endeavoring to realize God's provisions for man. Therefore, the practitioner can and does claim for himself, or for a patient, anything or everything that exists in infinite Mind to which individual man is entitled; and coversely, the practitioner disclaims and denies for himself, or for a patient, anything that infinite good, the divine Mind, does not provide for man. Thus, the practitioner consistently maintains and endeavors to demonstrate the spiritual unity which exists forever between God and man.

Christian Science defines God as "incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love" (Science and Health, p. 465). Because of what such terms contradict as well as what they denote and imply, they are significant in meditation and useful in treatment for both of these reasons. Thus, the phrase "divine Principle of man and the universe" denotes and implies that which causes, governs, and is the one element or substance of all that really is. Therefore, all that is real in human experience originates with, is sustained by, and continues to exist in that which can be defined or described as divine Principle. And this truth is not only true; it is also demonstrable.

Clifford P. Smith

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