In recent news items there have been reports of criminals who claim that they are the helpless victims of their chromosomes. The theory is that certain criminal tendencies are inherited and that the victim cannot help himself and therefore should not be held liable for his actions. Such a defense has not been generally accepted, but it brings up the whole theory of heredity, the belief in the transmission of human characteristics, sinful tendencies, and also of disease. All these theories, including those concerned with DNA, which is considered the chemical bearer of hereditary characteristics, rest upon the belief of intelligence as resident in matter. Christian Science takes radical exception to this basic error. Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "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." ^{Science and Health, p. 178;}

One of the fundamental errors of human investigation in this field is to treat these chromosomes as causes rather than as effects. Christian Science shows us that the human body is the expression of the human mind, and that it is false belief that is the source of hereditary deficiencies and not the physical chemistry. And it is the application of the truth of being that corrects the difficulty. This Science teaches that man is the child of God, that he is spiritual, that he reflects all the qualities of God and is conditioned only by this perfect relationship with his source, divine Truth and Love. It reveals cause and effect as being God and man, divine Principle and idea, and thus it lifts human thought above the lower theories and enables one to correct the errors of material belief.

It is both the belief in evil as real and the belief in the material transmission of evil tendencies that perpetuate these errors, including disease. The Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, tells us: "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." ^{p. 228;}

It is a common tendency in human reasoning to trace disease proclivities to one's parents or ancestors. And hence it is essential that the belief of material heredity be thoroughly rejected in the treatment of disease. Christ Jesus said, "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." ^{Matt. 23:9;} As we come to understand the truth of being, we see that we are not helpless victims either in the case of sin or disease. The Christ, the true idea of man's relationship to God, is the Saviour, for it reveals the pure source of our being. We find that through this truth we can relinquish our belief in evil and stop the tendency of error to repeat itself and carry on from generation to generation. When we cease to believe in evil, it ceases to have any hold over us.

This is particularly valuable in helping to release children from bondage to evil tendencies and birth defects. Like father, like son is a belief, not a law. If material research traces similarities of chromosomes, this simply shows a continuity of belief expressed in the body. When we break away from the material basis of causation, we can challenge the necessity of repeated experience of evil. Causation is mental, not physical. Matter itself is a product of false mentality, and material conditions are subject to the correcting truth revealed in Christian Science.

The true characteristics of man come from God, and we can come to understand that individuality is divinely bestowed. It rests upon a spiritual basis and is outlined by divine intelligence. The rejection of the theory of heredity shows no disrespect for parents; it is simply a declaration of freedom from evil. That God is the one source of man's being is set forth in this statement from Science and Health: "The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things." ^{Science and Health, p. 281.}

Soul is the source of man's being. The ego that says there is life and intelligence in matter is mortal mind. In current discoveries we are learning something of the patterns of mortal belief, but it is well to keep in mind that these are effects and not causes. There is only one actual intelligence and that is the divine Mind. We have every right and duty to yield only to this beneficent cause and to have the expression of health and harmony in our experience. Whether we are talking about the stream of consciousness, the bloodstream, or DNA, we can know that even as in the case of the mechanical computer, these systems can reflect only what is fed into them. We are safe as we adhere to the fact that there is one God, one Mind, and that this Mind is divine Love, the pure source of being.

William Milford Correll