Day 242: Today’s Question

479:27-482:12

Does brain think, and do nerves feel, and is there intelligence in matter? (answer cont’d from yesterday)

Consciousness, as well as action, is governed by Mind,--is in God, the origin and governor of all that Science reveals.

The forbidden fruit of knowledge, against which wisdom warns man, is the testimony of error, declaring existence to be at the mercy of death, and good and evil to be capable of commingling. This is the significance of the Scripture concerning this "tree of the knowledge of good and evil,"--this growth of material belief, of which it is said: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Human hypotheses first assume the reality of sickness, sin, and death, and then assume the necessity of these evils because of their admitted actuality. These human verdicts are the procurers of all discord.

When reading the Scriptures, the substitution of the word sense for soul gives the exact meaning in a majority of cases.

As used in Christian Science, Soul is properly the synonym of Spirit, or God; but out of Science, soul is identical with sense, with material sensation.

2010

Day 59: Good versus Evil

109:32-112:2

These two pages have a line drawn. On the side of God is: man’s perfectibility and divine metaphysics. On the other side is: will defined as sensuous reason, and unreality called evil.

I know from my reading of this book last year what part human will plays (or more accurately doesn’t play) in Christian Science. I’m eager to learn how man’s perfectibility is explained in the book. I know some of it but I expect more since it is right here in these particular pages.

If you have a favorite phrase about man’s perfectibility in the book, please leave the page and line reference in the comments.

2010

Day 50: Error or Evil

91:22-93:20

The mistake of thinking that error can be real, when it is merely the absence of truth, leads to belief in the superiority of error.

Good does not create a mind susceptible of causing evil, for evil is the opposing error and not the truth of creation.

2010

Day 290: God & the Devil

583:10-585:8

These two terms, defined, are a great way to look at Christian Science and my own spiritual growth:

CREATOR. Spirit; Mind; intelligence; the animating divine Principle of all that is real and good; self-existent Life, Truth, and Love; that which is perfect and eternal; the opposite of matter and evil, which have no Principle; God, who made all that was made and could not create an atom or an element the opposite of Himself.

DEVIL. Evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor mind; the opposite of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness, and death; animal magnetism or hypnotism; the lust of the flesh, which saith: "I am life and intelligence in matter. There is more than one mind, for I am mind,-- a wicked mind, self-made or created by a tribal god and put into the opposite of mind, termed matter, thence to reproduce a mortal universe, including man, not after the image and likeness of Spirit, but after its own image."

Day 284 Sin chasing Mortal Man

569:29-572:2

The image of the dragon sending water to wash the woman away is an interesting image. Mary Baker Eddy spends this reading discussing reporting evil as well as good:

Many are willing to open the eyes of the people to the power of good resident in divine Mind, but they are not so willing to point out the evil in human thought, and expose evil’s hidden mental ways of accomplishing iniquity.

Then she advises:

Escape from evil, and designate those as unfaithful stewards who have seen the danger and yet have given no warning.

Day 269: Moral Chemicalization

538:23-540:24

I think it is an interesting point that this section becomes a comparison of Cain to Jesus. Mary Baker Eddy doesn’t do it out right, she just ignores Cain, now born, altogether. And only discusses Jesus. That’s really her whole point is to not give the material one second of thought, but only the spiritual.

Point #1

In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our ignorance that the Lord hath wrought an evil, but we ought to know that God’s law uncovers so-called sin and its effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin.

This is a good point to remember in Christian Science because while I am in the chemicalization, I may not know what sin is being uncovered. I need to remember I am passing through a chemicalization when the worst of it is upon me and not in an endless mortal situation.

Point #2

The purpose of the Hebrew allegory, representing error as assuming a divine character, is to teach mortals never to believe a lie.

I think, for me, the issue is to remember what the lie is. The little lies are easy to see through. But the one big lie is not.

Day 246: New Connections

489:24-491:16

A few of things I would like to note about this reading. First, I think there might be several points that are new in recapitulation, to me anyway. I know this is probably error on my part. So the second thing is that I’m considering reading this journal again next year instead of moving on to misc writings. If I missed some key points and didn’t figure it out until around page 500, I wonder what else I missed. Third, if other people were blogging about their experience reading the book, and I could find/read those blogs, perhaps I wouldn’t have missed what I now consider very important points. Drat! Double Drat!

[Just spent 20 minutes trying to find an online link to the Journal for Misc Writings. Argh! I’ll post here and on the About Me page when I find it. Anyone know if it is officially out of print?]

First point:

The corporeal senses are the only source of evil or error. Christian Science shows them to be false, because matter has no sensation, and no organic construction can give it hearing and sight nor make it the medium of Mind. Outside the material sense of things, all is harmony.

This is the best definition of evil/error so far in the book – the first one that was applicable to my life and experience.

Will-power is but a product of belief, and this belief commits depredations on harmony. Human will is an animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul.

Will--blind, stubborn, and headlong--cooperates with appetite and passion. From this cooperation arises its evil. From this also comes its powerlessness, since all power belongs to God, good.

This is the first connection I’ve seen between human will and belief (or was it there in the trial somewhere?). Also another good tie into to evil.

Human belief--or knowledge gained from the so-called material senses--would, by fair logic, annihilate man along with the dissolving elements of clay.

Now a tie between belief and the material senses. The following formula isn’t exactly write but close to what I’m getting from this reading:

Material Senses = Belief = Will = Error/Evil

Thoughts?

And then the last little bit about sleep which I thought was a great example of what Mary Baker Eddy is trying to say:

Sleep and mesmerism explain the mythical nature of material sense. Sleep shows material sense as either oblivion, nothingness, or an illusion or dream. Under the mesmeric illusion of belief, a man will think that he is freezing when he is warm, and that he is swimming when he is on dry land. Needle-thrusts will not hurt him. A delicious perfume will seem intolerable. Animal magnetism thus uncovers material sense, and shows it to be a belief without actual foundation or validity. Change the belief, and the sensation changes. Destroy the belief, and the sensation disappears.