Why should we forgive? Why should we forgive anyone who through ignorance or malice has harmed us?

Forgiveness is not only salutary to the unpleasant situation, but it is mandatory to the furtherance of spiritual growth. We need to forgive because we need to know man as God knows him, as God made him—perfect, upright, and spiritual. Man is not mortal or material. The supreme example of this kind of forgiveness was shown by Christ Jesus when he was being crucified. He was willing to forgive his antagonists even in the midst of their most concentrated hatred. He understood the real man to be spiritual, separate from evil and hatred. His words at the time of the crucifixion, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,"¹ indicate that he wouldn't allow a mortal concept of manhood to alter his viewpoint.

The basis for forgiving is the profound fact that God is All-in-all and that nothing exists outside His creation. Man, in this creation, is the totally good reflection of the perfect Father of all.

Any pretense of mortality, of uninspired or unloving thought, is precluded by God's allness. Because He is All, no evil can actually occur in the first place that needs to be forgiven. God, the perfect creator, made nothing unlike Himself. Any suggestion of reality apart from God is wholly unreal.

God's man is not made of material elements, nor is he subject to aggressive, evil thoughts. These are unreal, illusory. Realizing that man is spiritual, untouched by mortality and material thinking, we will not be offended by the unloving actions of others. Since materiality is not part of the infinite realm of Spirit, there is no material mentality that can offend or be offended. All that can seem to be hurt is a false belief, a false concept of man as material and vulnerable. Mrs. Eddy states, "In proportion as matter loses to human sense all entity as man, in that proportion does man become its master."²

Several years ago I worked for someone who suddenly turned against me in great malice in an effort to cover up a gross error of his own. He attempted to blame me, even though it was obvious I was not at fault. My resentment for this situation boiled over in open hostility, endangering my job, and I began to have severe headaches.

I discussed this situation with an experienced Christian Scientist, my primary desire being to get rid of the illness. In our discussion the story of my resentment at work came out, and the scientific reasons for forgiveness were clearly pointed out to me.

I had to silence retaliatory thoughts and replace them with an understanding of God's man. In place of a scheming, evil, erring mortal, I had to see man as the unoffending, unblundering, perfect likeness of God. As this line of reasoning became clearer to me, the illness vanished; and as a bonus, my boss recommended me for a welcome raise and transfer.

Scientific forgiving spiritualizes our thought so that we are less and less influenced by a material concept of ourselves and others. We realize there is never the need to be angry or self-justified, because these attitudes assign power to matter, material circumstances, a false concept of creation.

When we forgive scientifically, we also forget scientifically. We do not hold as worth remembering a false sense of history— and we prove that what is unknown to the one infinite Mind cannot truly be remembered. We see the allness of God's love enfolding man and gain a conviction that through Christian Science we can forgive anything and be blessed for it.

1 Luke 23:34; 2 Science and Health, p. 369.