SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION - The Mary Baker Eddy Science Institute

eginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Wordwas God . . . All things were made by him; and without him was notany thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was thelight of men.” “And God saw every thing that he had made, and,behold, it was very good. “(Isa 44:6; John 1:1; Gen 1: 31.)The same theme of spiritual creator and creation permeates Scienceand Health , where God elucidates His nature as the divine Principlein more scientific terms. Man, together with every 'thing,' is declaredto be perfect idea in the Mind which is God. Perhaps the mostbeautiful example we have of this language is on page 252, whereSpirit bears testimony of itself: “I am Spirit. Man, whose senses arespiritual, is my likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for Iam Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being,imperishable glory, - all are Mine, for I am God. I give immortality toman, for I am Truth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love. I givelife, without beginning and without end, for I am Life. I am supremeand give all, for I am Mind. I am the substance of all, because I AMTHAT-I-AM.” From this sublime summit the textbook explains that “Forright reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought,namely, spiritual existence. “ It spells out “a perfect Principle andidea, - perfect God and perfect man, - as the basis of thought anddemonstration” and that “Principle and its idea is one.” Furthermore itelucidates just what this divine Principle is. (S & H 492:3; 259:11;465:17. See also S & H 127:4-8; 275:10-12.)Language 2In contrast to this monistic language of God's Word, there seems tobe another language, that of material sense, which conceives ofeverything as opposite to the spiritual. It is therefore dual in itsexpression. God degenerates into good and evil, Life into birth anddeath, unity into fragmentation and hostility, and the Word into thecontradictions of opposites. This language is still referring to thesame universe, but because it describes it from a supposedstandpoint outside the divine Principle it turns every thing upsidedown, misrepresents the true nature, and thus apparently createsanother - a material - universe. As mortals we hardly notice that thisis happening, for we seem to be inextricably involved in it. Our verysenses are the mechanism of the dream; the dream dreams us.25