The Science of Mind and discoveries of reality
For much of this century, religion and science were barely speaking. Yet some futurists say a major direction of the coming millennium will be a new cooperation between the two.
Actually, though, something far vaster may be happening. In certain areas, theological and scientific research is converging in an extraordinary new endeavor which is reaching to define reality itself - and to establish scientifically the very existence of God.
A few thinkers in the vanguard of modern physics now believe that God is scientifically "discoverable." And they feel under a mandate to explain God in comprehensible terms.
The motive underlying this mission has an affinity with the Science of Christianity, which Mary Baker Eddy discovered. She wrote that "Christian Science translates Mind, God, to mortals. It is the infinite calculus defining the line, plane, space, and fourth dimension of Spirit" ("Miscellaneous Writings," pg. 22).
For over a century now, Christian Science has been defining Spirit. With Mrs. Eddy's publication of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which first appeared in 1875, came the announcement of epoch-making discoveries: That a "divine Science of Mind-healing" exists (see pg. 123). That the laws of this Science rest on an infinite Principle, God. That Jesus utilized these laws in healing disease and sin. That understanding divine Truth heals men, women, and children today.
Science and Health documents that the system of healing which these discoveries represent has been "fully tested" (see pg. viii). Its author "demonstrated" the capacity of divine power to heal physical and mental disorders. So Science and Health challenges Truth-seekers everywhere to provide evidence for the practicality of the Science of being. Eddy wrote of the revelation of Christian Science as including the "proof, by present demonstration, that the so-called miracles of Jesus did not specially belong to a dispensation now ended, but that they illustrated an ever-operative divine Principle" (pg. 123).
Each spiritual healing contributes to the growing body of evidence demonstrating the divine Principle of the universe. And so does each conquest of good over evil, love over hate, Spirit over matter, peacemaking over war-making, order over chaos. Each such victory virtually announces to the world: The coherent, benevolent divine Principle of the universe - God - exists. God creates every one of us for the purpose of expressing Him as His purely good, wholly spiritual image and likeness. And God unfailingly empowers us to accomplish this purpose.
In this context, all evidence demonstrating the Science of Mind - however seemingly trivial - takes on much greater significance.
Here's an example. On a trip out of the country, I suddenly felt overwhelmed with nausea. I asked my mother, who was traveling with me, to cancel me out of a side trip that had been planned for that day.
"Why can't you be healed?" was her simple response.
Immediately, I gained new perspective. I saw the illness as an opportunity to prove the Science of Mind, to contribute to humanity's record of spiritual healing. My prayers became more purposeful - and effective.
And when the bus left, my mom and I were on it.
Physicist Paul Davies writes, "I have come to the point of view that mind - i.e., conscious awareness of the world - is not a meaningless and incidental quirk of nature, but an absolutely fundamental facet of reality." He and some of his fellow scientists are committed to researching humankind's "intimate" connection with what he calls the "mind of God" ("The Mind of God," pgs. 16, 232). And each individual, striving in his or her own life to demonstrate the Science of Mind, can do so much to accelerate - and indeed to shape - the profound discoveries awaiting humanity.
The Christian Science Sentinel is a weekly magazine put out by The Christian Science Publishing Society.
(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society
