Life, Truth, and Love for All

Mary Baker Eddy discusses all human issues, including the issue of lack, not having enough, a famine of good things. She discusses this and God’s nature of goodness in her textbook, one that Christian Scientists the world over use and honor: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

In her chapter, Recapitulation, there is a question, “What is Life?” This chapter is filled with questions and answers that Mary Baker Eddy used with her students to teach them the healing truths of Christian Science, and to this day, Christian Scientists going through Class Instruction in Christian Science healing practice, get to learn this chapter inside and out, as it is the foundation of the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy.

Going back to the question, “What is Life?” on page 469, the answer reads as follows:

“Life is divine Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit. LIfe is without beginning and without end. Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity. One ceases in proportion as the other is recognized. Time is finite; eternity is forever infinite. Life is neither in nor of matter. What is termed matter is unknown to Spirit, which includes in itself all substance and is Life eternal.”

The definition goes on for a few more sentences. Mary Baker Eddy grasps very well the nature of God as Life. She uses seven synonyms to describe the nature of God, and each is capitalized to give it importance. Underneath each name for God can be listed innumerable qualities for each name or synonym. The seven are: MInd, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.

Her book is a study of these seven terms, names,synonyms, characteristics for God, and helps us see that God is not just a word, but has profound meaning and practicality. By itself, God means nothing, so we need a scientific explanation, and this explanation is found in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

When I think of Life from a spiritual perspective I like to think of infinite abundance, infinite supply, infinite nourishment. Life is used in the bible as father, fatherhood, origin, abundant good. Life’s idea or image is man and the universe. Therefore, in a scientific, and spiritual perspective, man has abundance since God is Life, and God is all, and God is good. This, I am so grateful for, and shouldn’t we all be. God, our Father, Creator, has given us abundant good, and we don’t always see it or feel it. We see lack, impoverishment, missing abundance. Yet, if we see as God sees, we can only see everything made by God as good, perfect, and harmonious. The Holy Bible will reinforce this idea. Genesis says that “God saw everything that he made and behold it was very good.” That has always been one of the favorite bible versus among Christian Scientists.

One way to understand better, the idea of life, which is abundance, is by replacing the words, “Life,” and “eternity,” in the answer to Mary Baker Eddy’s question, “What is Life?” Then, we can reread it understanding that time, beginning, ending, finiteness and matter have nothing to do with abundance, the abundance of God, all-living Life.

The Life of abundance has always been our Life, our abundance. God has made us in the image and likeness of abundance, and really, the statement that man is image and likeness, which comes from the bible book of Genesis, is saying that man has everything that God has, which is infinity. The statement could have said that the universe, all animals, geological formations, the seas, and man, are the image and likeness. However, no where in the bible is anything stated as the image and likeness of God, except for man. This must make us feel special, as God’s perfect child. Man is the highest idea of God, and so is never without infinite good, infinite supply, infinte ideas of Mind, the one good, all-creative Mind, God.