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All that any one of us knows and
understands about Christian Science comes direct from God. As students of the
Word of God, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by
Mary Baker Eddy are our guides. Mrs Eddy says of the textbook that it "contains
the full statement of Christian Science, or the Science of healing through
Mind" (S&H 456:28).
For many years we have heard people say
such things as: Science and Health is too difficult and abstract, give me
something simpler and relevant; or they ask: What is the basis for your
attitude that this book has divine authority, spiritual sanctity, and a healing
effect?
Christian Science teaches that healing is
as possible today as it was in Jesus' time. Jesus healed by knowing the divine
Principle of wholeness; and this knowledge was not something exclusive to Jesus
and his immediate followers. When one investigates this barrier that so many
people believe is between themselves and the message of Science and Health, one
finds that the book is not seen first as a textbook to be read from beginning
to end before being used as a reference book. The Bible is so often treated in
a similar piecemeal way. The power of these books lies in their coherently
integrated wholeness. It is only from the standpoint of the whole that a detail
remains valid and powerful and not self-contradictory and self-destructive.
In Christian Science we refer to the
Bible and Science and Health as our twin textbooks. The latter shows us why the
former is truly the 'book of life.' When Mrs Eddy discontinued personal pastors
(including herself) in the churches she ordained the Bible and Science and
Health to take their place, calling them "Your dual and impersonal pastor" (Mis
322:10). She said in an article called "Science and Philosophy," "I foresee and
foresay that every advancing epoch of Truth will be characterized by a more
spiritual apprehension of the Scriptures, that will show their marked
consonance with the textbook of Christian Science Mind-healing, Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures" (Mis 363:30). On another occasion, in a
letter to a New York newspaper, Mrs Eddy said, "Christian Science presents the
demonstrable divine Principle and rules of the Bible, hitherto undiscovered in
the translations of the Bible and lacking in the creeds" (My 299:13). In no
place in her writings does she indicate that Science and Health supercedes the
Bible, supplements or replaces it. Indeed its full title, Science and Health
with Key to the Scriptures clearly states its relationship.
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