Miscellaneous Writings. Mary Baker Eddy

Spirit and matter?

      Christian Science is based on the facts of Spirit and its forms and representations, but these facts are the direct antipodes of the so-called facts of matter; and the eternal verities of Spirit assert themselves over their opposite, or matter, in the final destruction of all that is unlike Spirit.

      Man knows that he can have one God only, when he Regards God as the only Mind, Life, and substance. If God is Spirit, as the Scriptures declare, and All-in-all, matter is mythology, and its laws are mortal beliefs.

      If Mind is in matter and beneath a skull bone, it is in something unlike Him; hence it is either a godless and material Mind, or it is God in matter—which are ​theories of agnosticism and pantheism, the very antipodes of Christian Science.

       What is organic life?

      Life is inorganic, infinite Spirit; if Life, or Spirit, were organic, disorganization would destroy Spirit and annihilate man.

      If Mind is not substance, form, and tangibility, God is substanceless; for the substance of Spirit is divine Mind. Life is God, the only creator, and Life is immortal Mind, not matter.

      Every indication of matter's constituting life is mortal, the direct opposite of immortal Life, and infringes the rights of Spirit. Then, to conclude that Spirit constitutes or ever has constituted laws to that effect, is a mortal error, a human conception opposed to the divine government. Mind and matter mingling in perpetual warfare is a kingdom divided against itself, that shall be brought to desolation. The final destruction of this false belief in matter will appear at the full revelation of Spirit—one God, and the brotherhood of man. Organic life is an error of statement that Truth destroys. The Science of Life needs only to be understood; its demonstration proves the correctness of my statements, and brings blessings infinite.

      Why did God command, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” if all minds (men) have existed from the beginning, and have had successive stages of existence to the present time?

      Your question implies that Spirit, which first spiritually created the universe, including man, created man ​over again materially; and, by the aid of mankind, all was later made which He had made. If the first record is true, what evidence have you—apart from the evidence of that which you admit cannot discern spiritual things—of any other creation? The creative “Us” made all, and Mind was the creator. Man originated not from dust, materially, but from Spirit, spiritually. This work had been done; the true creation was finished, and its spiritual Science is alluded to in the first chapter of Genesis.

      Jesus said of error, “That thou doest, do quickly.” By the law of opposites, after the truth of man had been demonstrated, the postulate of error must appear. That this addendum was untrue, is seen when Truth, God, denounced it, and said: “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow.” “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” The opposite error said, “I am true,” and declared, “God doth know … that your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,” creators. This was false; and the Lord God never said it. This history of a falsity must be told in the name of Truth, or it would have no seeming. The Science of creation is the universe with man created spiritually. The false sense and error of creation is the sense of man and the universe created materially.

      Why does the record make man a creation of the sixth and last day, if he was coexistent with God?

      In its genesis, the Science of creation is stated in mathematical order, beginning with the lowest form and ascending the scale of being up to man. But all that really is, always was and forever is; for it existed in and of the Mind that is God, wherein man is foremost.

      ​If one has died of consumption, and he has no remembrance of that disease or dream, does that disease have any more power over him?

      Waking from a dream, one learns its unreality; then it has no power over one. Waking from the dream of death, proves to him who thought he died that it was a dream, and that he did not die; then he learns that consumption did not kill him. When the belief in the power of disease is destroyed, disease cannot return.

      How does Mrs. Eddy know that she has read and studied correctly, if one must deny the evidences of the senses? She had to use her eyes to read.

      Jesus said, “Having eyes, see ye not?” I read the inspired page through a higher than mortal sense. As matter, the eye cannot see; and as mortal mind, it is a belief that sees. I may read the Scriptures through a belief of eyesight; but I must spiritually understand them to interpret their Science.

      Does the theology of Christian Science aid its healing?

      Without its theology there is no mental science, no order that proceeds from God. All Science is divine, not human, in origin and demonstration. If God does not govern the action of man, it is inharmonious: if He does govern it, the action is Science. Take away the theology of mental healing and you take away its science, leaving it a human “mind-cure,” nothing more nor less—even one human mind governing another; by which, if you agree that God is Mind, you admit that there is ​more than one government and God. Having no true sense of the healing theology of Mind, you can neither understand nor demonstrate its Science, and will practise your belief of it in the name of Truth. This is the mortal “mind-cure” that produces the effect of mesmerism. It is using the power of human will, instead of the divine power understood, as in Christian Science; and without this Science there had better be no “mind-cure,”—in which the last state of patients is worse than the first.

       Is it wrong to pray for the recovery of the sick?

      Not if we pray Scripturally, with the understanding that God has given all things to those who love Him; but pleading with infinite Love to love us, or to restore health and harmony, and then to admit that it has been lost under His government, is the prayer of doubt and mortal belief that is unavailing in divine Science.

       Is not all argument mind over mind?

      The Scriptures refer to God as saying, “Come now, and let us reason together.” There is but one right Mind, and that one should and does govern man. Any copartnership with that Mind is impossible; and the only benefit in speaking often one to another, arises from the success that one individual has with another in leading his thoughts away from the human mind or body, and guiding them with Truth. That individual is the best healer who asserts himself the least, and thus becomes a transparency for the divine Mind, who is the only physician; the divine Mind is the scientific healer.

      ​How can you believe there is no sin, and that God does not recognize any, when He sent His Son to save from sin, and the Bible is addressed to sinners? How can you believe there is no sickness, when Jesus came healing the sick?

      To regard sin, disease, and death with less deference, and only as the woeful unrealities of being, is the only way to destroy them; Christian Science is proving this by healing cases of disease and sin after all other means have failed. The Nazarene Prophet could make the unreality of both apparent in a moment.

      Does it not limit the power of Mind to deny the possibility of communion with departed friends dead only in belief?

      Does it limit the power of Mind to say that addition is not subtraction in mathematics? The Science of Mind reveals the impossibility of two individual sleepers, in different phases of thought, communicating, even if touching each other corporeally; or for one who sleeps to communicate with another who is awake. Mind's possibilities are not lessened by being confined and conformed to the Science of being.

      If mortal mind and body are myths, what is the connection between them and real identity, and why are there as many identities as mortal bodies?

      Evil in the beginning claimed the power, wisdom, and utility of good; and every creation or idea of Spirit has its counterfeit in some matter belief. Every material belief hints the existence of spiritual reality; and if mortals are instructed in