SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION - The Mary Baker Eddy Science Institute

More documents

Recommendations

Info

deductive, deducing the universe from its revealed Principle, God.“Divinely defined, Science is the atmosphere of God; humanlyconstrued, and according to Webster, it is ' knowledge, duly arrangedand referred to general truths and principles on which it is founded,and from which it is derived.‟ I employ this awe-filled word in both adivine and human sense” (No 9:25). The distinction can be set out infour steps:scientific method in the sciences:(1) observation (2) hypothesis (3) testing (4) lawscientific method in Science:(1) revelation ( 2) translation (3) demonstration (4) interpretation.In the physical sciences, the first step is to obtain information fromaccurately measured observations under controlled conditions;second, these observations suggest a possible explanation, so ahypothesis (2) is put forward - postulated - for testing (step 3). Fourth,if the hypothesis is confirmed incontrovertibly by tests, it is acceptedas fact and is dignified by the name of a law or a theory. If notconfirmed, then back to the laboratory.The Science of Spirit also is amenable to scientific method, eventhough its data are spiritual ideas and not observations from matter.Instead, the first step - that of seeking information - is to be open torevelation, to hear God speak in His own logic. Second, a Christfunction translates and reasons this general Truth into specific truths,enforcing their acceptance in consciousness. Third, there is selfoperativeproof or spontaneous demonstration (though the individualmay think of it as himself making a demonstration).The fourth step isthat Science explains and interprets itself as law - as the foreveroperation of the law of God. (Again, as with the physical sciences, ifthe initial assumption is not at first confirmed in proof, the Scientistmust go back to his starting point and acquaint himself better with thegreat First Cause.)What distinguishes the Christian Scientist from the physical scientistis the way each regards the phenomena before him. In the view ofChristian Science, the noumenon is God, the Supreme Being, whileall phenomena are the expression of God's being; “All is infinite Mindand its infinite manifestation” (S & H 468:10). All the materialsciences, however, begin with the assumption that the objects being48
observed are actually material. The scientist studies the phenomenaof God's universe without knowing that the noumenon is Spirit. Tomaterial sense everything seems a matter phenomenon, of which thereal noumenon remains a mystery, like the grin without the Cheshirecat. What is called matter could be defined, then, as phenomenonwithout its proper noumenon. When the noumenon is understood, itsphenomenon is no longer thought to be matter but is seen to bespiritual ideas.The Spirit and the LetterIf this system is so crucial to the understanding of Christian Science,the reader may ask, why did Mrs. Eddy not extract its elements andlay them out openly on the page? Would it not have been helpful forus? Undoubtedly she knew precisely what she was doing in burying itwithin the flow of the text. Indeed, her editor of the Christian ScienceJournal at one time did prepare an article on these vitalfundamentals, but she refused to let him publish it, writing to him, “Ihave erased your verities . . . The textbooks contain it all, but soarranged as to require growth before it is spoken by those who havenot grown to it” (Coll 184).Christian Science reveals both the spiritual meaning of the universeand the scientific means by which it can be understood anddemonstrated. Human thought tends to focus on one at the expenseof the other. With the discovery of the Science and system inherent inScience and Health (often referred to, perhaps improperly, as 'thepure Science of Christian Science') it becomes even more of atemptation for the human mind to try to separate the two by becomingabsorbed in the technology of the means.Of course, in reality the spirit cannot be divorced from the letter. Thespirit, the meaning, without the scientific means, could becomeformless mysticism, while the letter, the means, without the spiritualmeaning, would be merely mental categories and structures, andwould require something else to be applied to. If we have the twoseparated we don't have either. For this reason both the Bible andScience and Health keep them woven together, as the divine purposerequires our developing understanding of' the system to be keptalways within a spiritual framework. We could never really learn the49
Page 1 and 2: The Mary Baker Eddy Science Institu
Page 3 and 4: “Christian Science is not copyrig
Page 5 and 6: Chapter VI “Scientific Translatio
Page 7 and 8: PrefaceHow does the divine communic
Page 9 and 10: CHAPTER ITranslation OutlinedThe Th
Page 11 and 12: Everywhere in her writings Mary Bak
Page 13: through a range of capitalized syno
Page 16 and 17: CHAPTER IITo Begin Rightly is to En
Page 18 and 19: hiding the reality fall away by deg
Page 20 and 21: the imprisoning shadows grow less d
Page 22 and 23: A very simple illustration of the d
Page 24 and 25: egarding them as opportunities to p
Page 26 and 27: After presenting the spiritual univ
Page 28 and 29: school in the physical sciences. A
Page 30 and 31: It is plain that this tongue is not
Page 32 and 33: stomach behind the physical organ?
Page 34 and 35: Naturally it could be objected that
Page 36 and 37: CHAPTER IIIReduction to SystemGraci
Page 38 and 39: that it was a person's belief and n
Page 40 and 41: ealization that we are not apart fr
Page 42 and 43: educed must lie in a clear explanat
Page 44 and 45: eastward, to the star seen by the W
Page 46 and 47: (127:15). This is a very different
Page 50: elements of love, for instance, exc

SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION - The Mary Baker Eddy Science Institute

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?