As one awakens, through an understanding of Christian Science, to the reality of man's true and forever being as the reflection of his Father-Mother God, he also sees why it is imperative to deny the belief that he was ever born in matter or as the child of mortal parentage. This necessity is no doubt what Jesus implied in his talk with Nicodemus when he said (John 3:3, 6): "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. ... That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

The denial of the beliefs of human parentage does not mean that anyone would be any less kind and loving toward his human parents; but it indicates that as Christian Scientists we have learned the true nature of man and are therefore endeavoring to live and think from that scientific standpoint.

Most important of all, through this understanding we have learned to demonstrate the utter fallacy of heredity and its cruel impositions on humanity. In her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes (p. 178), "In proportion to our understanding of Christian Science, we are freed from the belief of heredity, of mind in matter or animal magnetism; and we disarm sin of its imaginary power in proportion to our spiritual understanding of the status of immortal being."

And on the same page she declares: "Heredity is not a law. The remote cause or belief of disease is not dangerous because of its priority and the connection of past mortal thoughts with present. The predisposing cause and the exciting cause are mental. Perhaps an adult has a deformity produced prior to his birth by the fright of his mother. When wrested from human belief and based on Science or the divine Mind, to which all things are possible, that chronic case is not difficult to cure."

Christian Science points out how important it is for mothers and also fathers to loose their children and themselves from the belief of human birth and the afflictive concepts that have been attached to it throughout the ages. Perhaps someone has held for years a sense of resentment or hate based on the belief that one of his parents has transmitted to him a disease, a sinful tendency, a temper, or an unhappy disposition with which he seems to be afflicted through no fault of his own. Here the law of Love as revealed in Christian Science teaches him to forgive scientifically, for Science enables one to see that both parent and child have been victimized by the mortal mind delusion that man is material instead of spiritual.

Christian Science enables one to know that, as the Apostle John declared, we are now the sons of God —the perfect expression of our Father-Mother, the creator. Through the revelation of Science, man's true sonship has now appeared and may be demonstrated. Therefore, one may free himself and also his parents from any belief in or of transmitted disease or sin.

Through study we also learn that if one would be free from disease or any erroneous tendency, the belief of heredity cannot be accepted as inevitable, nor as a justification or a defense of some mortal characteristic. Referring to this, our textbook says (p. 228): "The transmission of disease or of certain idiosyncrasies of mortal mind would be impossible if this great fact of being were learned,—namely, that nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God. Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin theories upon; but if we learn that nothing is real but the right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills will disappear."

In the ninth chapter of John we have a striking illustration of how Jesus dealt scientifically with the beliefs of sin and heredity. Meeting on the road a man blind from his birth, his disciples questioned the Master, apparently thinking that the man was being punished with blindness because of sin committed, perhaps, by his parents. In explanation, Jesus answered (verse 3), "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."

Holding to the eternal and unsullied perfection of man as the reflection and idea of God, he set aside the cruel belief of heredity and sinful transmission. He denied the belief of heredity. He refused to accept the false theological belief of suffering and penalty. He saw clearly that neither this man nor his parents were, in their true being, sinners. He forgave the belief of sin by detaching it from man and recognizing it only as an evil imposition of so-called mortal mind. The evidences of blindness, of sin and heredity, were alike unreal to him. Perfection alone was the fact for Jesus, the perfection and oneness of Principle and its idea; and on that basis he healed the blind man.

Jesus understood and exemplified man's divine inheritance—the inheritance of eternal well-being, the inheritance of infinite substance, the inheritance of a full measure of purity, righteousness, and good. All of this Jesus knew belonged to everyone as a son and heir of God. Emphasizing this divine fact, the Apostle Paul wrote (Rom. 8:16, 17), "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs: heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."

Richard J. Davis