Christ Jesus taught—and spiritual integrity demands—that our first aim should be to understand Deity, rather than merely to seek human betterment. We should, nevertheless, expect and insist on healing, in a deep and broad sense, as the result of this understanding. Christian Science, infinitely more than a sound, logical system of theological concepts, teaches how to demonstrate the boundlessness of Spirit.

How can we better color in the metaphysical frame of Christian Science with the vivid hues of demonstration? How can we more quickly and comprehensively illustrate the truth of being in human affairs? By admitting and applying what the spiritual senses reveal— these senses being our capacity to cognize the evidence of real being despite opposing testimony of the physical senses.

Testimony can be mistaken. The testimony of the material senses is always mistaken. Spiritual evidence, on the other hand, is confirmation of the realities of being. Demonstration in Christian Science can be described as replacing material testimony with spiritual evidence. Where does this replacing take place? In thought. It is first and always a mental process. No matter how external to thought seem to be the events that we describe as demonstration (healing, correction of financial difficulties, repaired relationships, and the like), they are essentially mental. Mrs. Eddy, who demonstrated divine Science as well as elucidating its conceptual framework, explains this clearly. She writes, "The suppositional warfare between truth and error is only the mental conflict between the evidence of the spiritual senses and the testimony of the material senses, and this warfare between the Spirit and flesh will settle all questions through faith in and the understanding of divine Love."^{Science and Health, p. 288;}

If we feel that Christian Science is hard to demonstrate, it helps to question our concept of demonstration. Are we thinking shallowly, one-sidedly, materially, of demonstration, concerned only for a painless body, an abundant bank balance, or suchlike? If so, our thought is pointed at the wrong target. Material health and wealth do not relate to the evidence of the spiritual senses, but to the testimony of material sense, and absorption in it would delay or frustrate authentic demonstration.

Here is a reliable test of the quality of our approach to Christian Science demonstration: Is the goal we hope to achieve actually a material or a spiritual one? Is our looked-for demonstration something we can show to others, like a better home or job? Or is it something that is tangible, primarily, only to us? Are we aiming to demonstrate Spirit in enriched spirituality? Are we aiming to illustrate Principle in a more just outlook? Are we endeavoring to echo divine Love in thoughts that are genuinely compassionate and forgiving? Are we aiming to evidence divine Mind in a quickened intelligence and more reliable insight?

The spiritual senses show us what we are and from this we can recognize what we're not. We're not, in Science, mortals conscientiously bent on proving the worth of a logical religion through acquiring material things or changing material conditions. The spiritual senses assure us and confirm that our real identity is man, God's immortal idea, embodying all that divine Love originates.

A mortal is not, and cannot be, the demonstrator of the truth that the only kind of man is immortal—as immortal as is eternal Life, man's origin. This would be self-contradictory. Man is not a mortal trying to somehow cause good to occur—such as the healing of a cancer—but man is the forever indestructible proof that God is, always has been, infinite and good. Exercising and relying on the spiritual senses enhances our demonstration of Christian Science because the spiritual senses view man only as God molded him, perfect and immortal.

The spiritual senses show that the health and satisfaction we would demonstrate are in fact eternal realities established throughout all eternity. Demonstration, in this sense, is the realization and proof that good was never absent, never delayed, never finite, never unevidenced.

Christ Jesus knew that spiritual senses were always at hand to reveal the truth of all things. Where the material senses saw disease, Christ Jesus saw—and proved—the presence of health. Where the material senses saw wild weather, Christ Jesus saw—and proved —divine stillness. Where the material senses may have seen in Christ Jesus a lonely person, he himself felt the presence of God, immortal Love. "I am not alone," he knew, "because the Father is with me." ^{John 16:32.}

Through Science we can in a degree emulate Christ Jesus today. How? By recognizing that discord is testimony of the warfare between truth and error, with error seeming to be temporarily the winner. But Science declares such warfare to be suppositional. As we consistently acknowledge that divine Spirit is omnipresent and omnipotent, we will live in line with Spirit as a natural consequence. This living will include multiplying proofs of the truth of all that the Science of being teaches.

Geoffrey J. Barratt

The invisible things of him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made,
even his eternal power and Godhead.

Romans 1:20