0.0 – Christian Science – 16 Books by Mary Baker Eddy – Bk 6 – Retrospection and Introspection – Chpt 22 – Foundation-stones

                     FOUNDATION-STONES 


 1	    The following ideas of Deity, antagonized by finite
  	theories, doctrines, and hypotheses, I found to be
 3	demonstrable rules in Christian Science, and that we
  	must abide by them. 
  	    Whatever diverges from the one divine Mind, or God,
 6	 — or divides Mind into minds, Spirit into spirits, Soul
  	into souls, and Being into beings, — is a misstatement
  	of the unerring divine Principle of Science, which inter-
 9	rupts the meaning of the omnipotence, omniscience, and
  	omnipresence of Spirit, and is of human instead of divine
  	origin. 
12	    War is waged between the evidences of Spirit and the
  	evidences of the five physical senses; and this contest
  	must go on until peace be declared by the final triumph
15	of Spirit in immutable harmony. Divine Science disclaims
  	sin, sickness, and death, on the basis of the omnipotence
  	and omnipresence of God, or divine good. 
18	    All consciousness is Mind, and Mind is God. Hence
   	there is but one Mind; and that one is the infinite good,
  	supplying all Mind by the reflection, not the subdivision,
21	of God. Whatever else claims to be mind, or consciousness,
  	is untrue. The sun sends forth light, but not suns; so
  	God reflects Himself, or Mind, but does not subdivide
24	Mind, or good, into minds, good and evil. Divine Sci-
 
  
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 1	ence demands mighty wrestlings with mortal beliefs, as
  	we sail into the eternal haven over the unfathomable
 3	sea of possibilities. 
  	    Neither ancient nor modern philosophy furnishes a
  	scientific basis for the Science of Mind-healing. Plato
 6	believed he had a soul, which must be doctored in order
  	to heal his body. This would be like correcting the prin-
  	ciple of music for the purpose of destroying discord. Prin-
 9	ciple is right; it is practice that is wrong. Soul is right;
  	it is the flesh that is evil. Soul is the synonym of Spirit,
  	God; hence there is but one Soul, and that one is infinite. 
12	If that pagan philosopher had known that physical sense,
  	not Soul, causes all bodily ailments, his philosophy would
  	have yielded to Science. 
15	    Man shines by borrowed light. He reflects God as
  	his Mind, and this reflection is substance, — the substance
  	of good. Matter is substance in error, Spirit is substance
18	in Truth. 
  	    Evil, or error, is not Mind; but infinite Mind is sufficient
  	to supply all manifestations of intelligence. The notion
21	of more than one Mind, or Life, is as unsatisfying as it is
  	unscientific. All must be of God, and not our own, sepa-
  	rated from Him. 
24	    Human systems of philosophy and religion are depart-
  	ures from Christian Science. Mistaking divine Principle
  	for corporeal personality, ingrafting upon one First Cause
27	such opposite effects as good and evil, health and sickness,
  	life and death; making mortality the status and rule of
  	divinity, — such methods can never reach the perfection
30	and demonstration of metaphysical, or Christian Science. 
 
  
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 1	    Stating the divine Principle, omnipotence (omnis potens),
  	and then departing from this statement and taking the
 3	rule of finite matter, with which to work out the problem
  	of infinity or Spirit, — all this is like trying to compensate
  	for the absence of omnipotence by a physical, false, and
 6	finite substitute. 
  	    With our Master, life was not merely a sense of exist-
  	ence, but an accompanying sense of power that subdued
 9	matter and brought to light immortality, insomuch that
  	the people "were astonished at his doctrine:  for he taught
  	them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." 
12	Life, as defined by Jesus, had no beginning; it was not
  	the result of organization, or infused into matter; it was
  	Spirit.SHOW ALL