Father-Mother God: A Christian Science
By Livia Mazur

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Christian Science is a religion based on the words and works of Jesus. It draws its authority from the Bible, and its teachings are set forth in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the creator of Christian Science (Christian1 1). The most renowned dogma of this religion is its belief in healing physical disease as well as sin by spiritual means alone.

The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1870 when 15 students of Mary Baker Eddy met with her and voted to organize a church and commemorate God and Jesus. It was this creation which was believed would reinstate primitive Christian teachings and the "lost element of healing" (Christian1 1).

In the Church of Christ, Scientist, followers draw a sharp distinction between the divine Mind, or God, and the carnal, or mortal, which is thought to be malice against God. To Christian Scientists, human will or suggestion has no place in divine healing. Learning to know and do God's will, accepting the true view of man as God sees him- it is this that corrects the distortions of a limited mortal sense of things (Committee1 14). In other words, Christian Science healing is a way to define the change from material-mindedness, or matter, to spiritual-mindedness. It is a result of moving from self-centered thinking to God centered thinking. In the pages that follow, I will outline Christian Science thinking on the nature of Divine Mind, as I've come to understand it through reading, a visit to our local Asheville, North Carolina congregation, and through an interview with Mr. Fred Carlin, a Christian Science practitioner.

In Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy created the six religious tenets of the Christian Science tradition which she claimed to be the most important points. In tenet number five, she writes "We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter" (Eddy 497).

Eddy defines "matter" in Science and Health as another name for the mortal mind; illusion; intelligence, substance, and life in non-intelligence and mortality; life resulting in death and death in life; sensation in the sensationless; mind originating in matter; the opposite of truth; the opposite of Spirit; the opposite of God; that of which immortal mind takes no cognizance that which mortal mind sees, feels, hears, tastes, and smells only in belief (Eddy 591).

There are many differences of beliefs among Christians of various denominations who practice spiritual healing, but Christian Scientists believe that those even outside their tradition would agree that it is in turning to God with deep desire to let God's will be done that opens the way for God's healing and saving power to be experienced. Christian Science stresses love not solely as human emotion but as a "divine, creative Principle of being" (Committee1 13). It uses the term "Principle" to make God more understandable as love acting through law as to sustain and be a ruling force for humanity. God as love is outside of matter or the material side of humanity.

When I was interviewing a Christian Scientist who lives in Asheville, NC named Fred Carlin , I was given an elaborate definition of matter that illuminated what God is to this tradition. Speaking of the "nothingness of matter", Mr. Carlin said, "God is the Divine Mind, Principle, Life, Truth, Love Spirit...- all these things have nothing to do with matter. Matter is a false sense." This false sense originated from the very beginning of man. Christian Scientists use the good and the evil depicted in the story of Adam and Eve to explain how mortal mind was born. The fact that Eve gave into the temptation of the serpent, i.e. illusion, and strayed from the immortal way of thinking leads Christian Scientists to understand the origin of doubt in regards to the belief that all that God had made was good.

Mary Baker Eddy writes "True prayer is not asking God for love, it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in this affection. Love makes new and scientific discoveries of God, of God's goodness and power. It shows us more clearly what we saw before, what we already have and are" (Committee2 15). Eddy used the term mortal mind because she could find no other way to depict the faults that had come to us, to illustrate how we see evil in and towards all that is not the Divine mind giving us good (Carlin 5).

Christian Science suggests that the discovery of what God is and should be is the substance of all religion. Through this discovery lies the art of healing. Healing does not lie outside of coming to know God. Healing is believed to be both inside and outside of the tradition, a "by-product rather than the ultimate aim of the Christian's search for God" (Committee2 14).

Christian Scientists believe that the kingdom of God is understood as the consciousness of Divine Truth--of the infinite, divine Principle, Love. With this it can be seen that healing is indeed evidence of the appearance of this consciousness in human experience. It is evidence that the deceitful suggestions of the mortal mind are being exchanged for the life-giving ideas of the divine Mind. They believe that this consciousness, or the awareness of the ability to create, shows that humanity is learning what it means to be the children of God. Moreover, Christian Scientists view healing in relation to salvation, i.e. the healing of one's "alienation from God" (Committee2 11). The condition of "wholeness" in this tradition, is not only the combination of mental and physical health, but the essential spirituality of humans, their likeness and image of God. The Church of Christ, Science believes disease, sin, and materiality are ultimately results of our tragically flawed perception, as lying outside that of which is thought of as God.

Often misinterpreted as a worshipping community of "positive thinkers," the focus of Christian Science is not to benefit oneself, or to illuminate human suffering and tragedy, but to uncover and heal their root causes. Mary Baker Eddy was extremely concerned with the relation of ideals to experience. In 1891 she wrote: "From my very childhood I was impelled, by a hunger and thirst after divine things--a desire for something higher and better than matter, and apart from it--to seek diligently for the knowledge of God as the one great and ever present relief from human woe" (Committee2 16).

Christian Science teaches people in an instructive way to think "rightly" and to understand or see some purpose for themselves and others, and about all things. Eddy believes that mortals think sickly thoughts and thus become sickly (Eddy 270). The promise which follows this declaration is the effect that when people come to think as God thinks, "God will harken unto their prayers and be found of those who search for god with all their hearts" (Knott2). In this way, Christian Science calls for loyalty and adherence to the teachings of Jesus Christ. He commanded his followers to take no thought for the body, as if health were dependent upon food and clothing, but to lift thought to spiritual things, which he named "the kingdom of god and God's righteousness" (Christian2 4).

In the Bible, the charge against the mortal man is given in Isaiah's prophecy, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." In the Christian Science tradition, followers are taught that this difference in thought and way should not be so, indeed it is not possible with God's man, God's image and likeness, who is a reflection of all activity of the Divine mind. It is believed within the tradition, that people should begin to trace the likeness of life to God by examining often our thoughts to see if they express that purity without which we cannot see God, and that love for God and our neighbor. Eddy says, "mortals should so improve material belief by thought tending spiritually upward as to destroy materiality, the result of this uplifting of thought is at once made manifest in improved conditions, better health, with a steady gain of mental and physical strength, until we at length tread with unwearied steps the path of Life divine" (Knott1).

Within the Christian Science religion, it is believed that failing to link thought to Principle, i.e. God as Mind/intelligence, humanity in everything until it is ready to give up the material conception of human nature. When ready to do this, a person comes to him or herself, finding the true meaning of a self that is worth knowing. Through insight of the spiritual "opposite of materiality, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure and free" (Gilmore).

Christian Scientists see healing as parallel to the power of the spiritual law. This "law" proved the instability and emptiness of mortal belief and its entire failure to satisfy man's search for the immortal. Healing presents a slow and painful process on the human side, up to the point when the entire mortal concept is abandoned as worthless and humanity finds itself. This discovery of the new-found self is thought to be the example of the rare and beautiful virtue of humility by Christian Scientists. In addition, followers of the tradition think that the infinite God never loses sight of God's own idea.

Christian Scientists believe many great people throughout history represent the delusion that mortal man can "exult" himself, oppose the divine law and order, and substitute for a human concept, ultimately, a product of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; but one after another of these attempts to dominate humankind have failed (C.S.V.) It is believed that each person must find the self at any cost, the ruler and the ruled alike; and, when spiritual awakening comes, the first step is humility followed by the acceptance of the strengths and the divine one sees in one's self. It is at this stage that every mortal need is met. Christian Science shows that when the true self is found it is "neither sick, nor sinful, nor sorrowful," but like God and all of that of God (Gilmore).

Christian Science demonstrates how the cause and the effect are directly related to all that is mental. Likewise, God, Mind, is the only cause and creator of all that exists, of all reality. Mary Baker Eddy states that, "in the suppositional realm of materiality seeming causation is also mental: that it springs from mental belief." (C.S.V.) Eddy believed that when spiritual truth replaces false belief, i.e. materiality, thought is corrected and the outward and inward spirit exist in harmony.

When this harmony is not a reality, disease, which is an image of thought externalized, is born. Fear, always growing out of the belief that evil is real, is to be overcome by the certain knowledge that since God is infinite good, evil, the suppositional opposite to good, had no place to exist (Christian2 3).

In addition, ignorance is overcome and thus excluded as a cause of sickness. This occurs when the light of spiritual truth enters one's consciousness. Furthermore, ignorance is a negative condition which disappears when understanding dawns. It ceases to be a factor in causing conflict when it is supplanted by the Divine idea, which is taught to be the truth about God and humanity. Christian Scientist theology posits, "Attainment of the right understanding of God and man, which spiritualizes consciousness, destroys through the elimination every false belief" (Gilmore).

Christian Scientists believe time has proven that the "mortal mind" may never pass the gulf that separates it from Divine Intelligence, and that it is even inadequate for mortal needs. Since intelligence, fact, and sciences are lacking, ignorance is enthroned as the intelligence of all human systems, and their fall is inevitable (Knott1). It is this belief of Christian Science that mortal mind is without intelligence, i.e. principle, the all creative Mind, in which ignorance is thought to have no place or not hold power within reality. Within these confines, the term "mortal mind" implies all the conditions of all human systems of intelligence, which again, being inadequate to human needs, are proven to have no place in the creation or universe of Divine Intelligence.

Furthermore, the mortal mind must be translated back into its native nothingness. Human systems, which are thought to be "void and without form", are to be rebuilt upon Christian Science- which is proclaimed as the ascertained truth. With this every stone must testify to a human need met, and "its perfect adequacy in fulfilling, faithfully the minute details of the specifications of the master builder, that in God's appointed time the whole structure, tried and without flaw, may be presented to him who shall reign therein forevermore" (C.S.V.).

The belief within Christian Science that God is Mind is in sharp contrast to many Christian theologies. One of the strongest arguments that Christian Science is not Christian may originate from this tenet of the tradition. However, I believe that within this doctrine lie teachings that look towards truth and knowledge to move all "mortal mind" towards seeing themselves as the immortal is seen.

With this knowledge of the immortal, all is thought to be created in the image of God. It is with this belief that Christian Scientists see that "truth never destroys God's idea,… knowledge thus obtained should not be judged as untrue and dangerous" (Eddy 299). Matter is that which creates illusions and makes it difficult to see God in all that is created.

I believe it is these teachings of Christian Science that could challenge the American landscape of today and yesterday and allow God to be understood in what strips hope from people of all kinds. Many Christians outside of the Christian Science religion insist that it is a tradition that denies the actual occurrence of the resurrection (Committee2 9).

However, Christian Science argues that it is knowing oneself and standing outside of "matter," as Jesus himself did, that allows one to be healed. Healed in this sense entails stepping beyond materiality into a life of awareness, with higher ideals of life and its joys. Teaching Christian Science followers the "divine principles of all good, whither every real individuality, image, or likeness of God, gathers" (Eddy 299) allows room for discovery of the self in a different light than many religions within the contemporary American religious landscape, with their primary emphasis on the bodily resurrection of Jesus, allow. I interpret living Christian Science as relying on spiritual means for healing; with healing defined through discovering the true self which is born in the image of God.

As man is exposed to all that has been created outside of God, the human psyche does not allow the ultimate truth to be understood and believed; therefore the mortal mind is born and grows. I feel the power of Christian Science exists in the religion's inherent interest in strengthening one's spirit versus the strengthening of one's faith (which I have known to be the focus of so many sects of Christianity and other religions).

Furthermore, I define strengthening one's spirit as seeing one's self in God versus strengthening one's faith in Christianity which presupposes that God is greater than all that is human. When a person knows him or herself to be the image of God and understands God as Mind, the greatest source of creativity, and is able to look past all that is "matter," healing occurs. If we, as Americans, had never been taught that we were the opposite of ALL that is God, I believe every person practicing Christianity could see that we are a part of the beauty of creation.

While interviewing Fred Carlin, hearing his personal interpretation of both the Bible and "Science and Health", I was able to briefly look at a firsthand example of this strengthening of the spirit. I also talked with him about the possible reasons for the hesitancy of America's youth to explore this aspect of Christian Science. He explained that most people are not ready to give up matter, they are not ready to "change the way they think about the world, yourself, and God...we're talking about the basis of your thinking, the very basis of what you are" (Carlin 20).

Mary Baker Eddy taught that evil and matter are not real--that is, they are not established or sustained by God (Christian1 10). This teaching is based on the understanding that God is spirit, as taught by Jesus, and that God is all--all powerful, all-loving, and all good. Christian Science believes that only within this context are evil and matter seen and understood as unreal.

Through Christian Science, Eddy taught that the truth which makes one free from the lies of "evil" is the fact that a human truly is made in the spiritual image and likeness of God. Therefore, I believe if all American religions looked to teach spiritual healing as the way of God, "healings" of all conditions would take place once one accepted the self on a more profound level. With this, the sense of God's goodness, presence and power could grow larger than the sense of difficulty in one's life. With true understanding, new insight, and a strong consciousness of God's presence and power, observance of the hope and beauty that is Life would be possible and every person could, with his or her whole heart and Mind, believe in what can be created.

Carlin, Fred. "Personal Interview." April 29, 1999.

Christian Science Committees on Publication. "Prayer and Spiritual Healing." Christian Science Publishing Society: Boston, 1967. 1

Christian Science Board of Directors. "Facts about Christian Science." Christian Science Publishing Society: Boston, 1959. 2

Committee on Publication. "Media Guide to Christian Science." Christian science Publishing Society: Boston, 1996. 1

Committee on Publication. "Christian Science: A Century Later." Christian Science Publishing Society: Boston, 1982. 2

C.S.V. "Mortal Mind." http://www.endtime.org/library/articles/mortal_,ind.html

Eddy, Mary Baker. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. First Church of Christ, Scientist: Boston, 1875.

Gilmore, Albert F. "Right Mental Practice." Christian Science Sentinel. Feb., 1927, Volume XXIX, No.25.

Knott, Annie M. "Finding One's Self." Http://www.endtime.org/library/knott/eds-s-18/finding-self.html 1

Knott, Annie M. "How to Think." Http://www.endtime.org/library/knott/eds-s-18/how-to-think.html 2