If you believe in eternal life, then you can’t be a mortal. Mortals end.
Mortals, by definition, end in death. They are no more. They are gone, kaput, no where to be found or seen. Non-existent. There is no option of eternal life for a mortal.
So, what lives on? Our eternal spiritual individuality at-one with God is what exists without beginning or end, and there isn’t anything mortal about it.
If you believe in eternal life, then you can’t, at the same time, believe you are a mortal. Mortals die. Immortals live on.
You are an immortal, now!
“God is the Principle of man, and man is the idea of God. Hence man is not mortal nor material. Mortals will disappear, and immortals, or the children of God, will appear as the only and eternal verities of man.”
“Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals” Science and Health, p. 476.
Dear Evan, your Blog feels like a personal trainer – meeting me right where I am and causing a change in thought and therefore behaviour! This is so clear – I wonder that I have mentally walked right past it …….. I shall declare to myself as often as possible – I am immortal, and live by divine authority. (Science and Health p 76) What a blessing we have in the Science of the Christ. My heartfelt thanks to all who stand on, and live by, this unfailing truth.
SIMPLE and direct…cant miss THAT Evan!
I agree with Diane. This is so simple and clear. If we believe that we live in eternal life now and that we are immortal, we do not have to die to reach eternal life, and we do not think that we are mortal and can disappear. Life is now. Someday, we shall awaken to this. Man seems only to disappear to mortal sense, not to spiritual sense or to Soul.
Many thanks, Evan, for this thought-provoking post!
This point has often been misunderstood by many who look at Christian Science from the outward mortal view. Thank you for the clarity of this post. It is a very important point upon which to understand why a commitment to Spiritually understand our identity and being in relation to the divine. Thank you, Evan. Gillian, I agree with your post.
Evan,
I am not sure I get this. :(. The suicide bomber who believes they will gain eternal life through hurting others or the school shooter who believes they will forever be remembered by killing others are engaging in that behavior because they believe they lack something. They are not acting like immortals. They are acting like mortals who do not feel loved and need to get it/find it. Once they stop searching for ways to get love because they feel Love, they have no reason to hurt others. Their idea of what constitutes eternal life is not correct. God’s child does not believe in lack. They have no reason to sin. Sin’s arguments are completely lost on them – there is no appeal to sin.
To call a mortal an immortal is to enable them to keep abusing and is not correcting the mistaken belief holding them hostage. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying?
Hi Kirsten,
You ask many good questions that could justify several more blog posts to explain! But in short, the evil that motivates a suicide bomber is no part of man’s spiritual individuality as a child of God. The mindset that engages such evil is never going to enter immortality. It has to be destroyed and ceased.
To find immortality, the beliefs of mortality have to be put off. Death does not make a mortal an immortal. Living true to Christ, through living the pure spiritual life, is what demonstrates immortality.
Even though humans make mistakes and commit sin, as we hold the model of the immortal man in high view, we reform our ways, find more of our true selfhood in Spirit, and leave mortal sins behind. In this way, we prove that we do have an immortal selfhood with God to claim and experience as our forever Life with God.
Hope that helps.
What’s interesting is that this is exactly what Origen and Gregory of Nyssa taught. This is not to say Mrs. Eddy got her ideas from these early Christian thinkers–it’s more that great minds think alike! 🙂
It’s also interesting to not that the idea that the material world doesn’t exist, that all is Spirit, was held by many Christians, including her Puritan forebear, Jonathan Edwards. It has been of value to me to compare Mrs. Eddy’s metaphysics with Edwards’ to find common ground between my current UCC church (Congregationalist) and Christian Science.
Dear Evan, thank you so much for your explanation of pure Christian Science which corrects several seeming misunderstandings. Whereas your today`s SpiritView is so clear, specially when you understand Christian Science aright!
Thank you Evan. I appreciate you taking the time to answer our questions. And thank you for letting us share some of our thoughts on Spiritview.
And, this makes me think of disease in a new way- thinking of God as lacking and that leading to feeling dis-ease. “God, why did you make me sick?” Or, “God, look at what happened? Why did you do that?” Or, “God, how come you were not powerful enough to stop that bad thing from happening?” Hmmmm. A God that lacks. That can’t be a correct perception of God.
Counterfeits. A counterfeit dollar may look real and how many times to we focus on the counterfeit trying to make it real So matter being a counterfeit of mortal mind, see it for just that and continue to gain a richer understanding of the real. Belief of = counterfeit.
Evan, please could you just say a word about our loved ones, especially children who appear to have passed on and whom we cannot see anymore
Everyone and everthing we see is a sense image. It is all subjective as there is no objective. All is a mortal mind image with no reality. Mortal mind is simple a anything we see,hear,touch and taste with the senses. It is not God’s kindom. I would encourage you to read Herb Finch’s books on this as well as Joel goldsmith, or even buddha’s lankavata sutra.
Hi Eleanor. You can rest assured that your loved ones are alive and cared for by their Father/Mother, moving on down the path of progress and demonstrating Life eternal, just as you are. If you didn’t believe in matter, you would see them.
Dear Evan, Thank you so much. One is my dear son. I know he is alive and well and living in the Divine Mind as we all are. Thank you.
Yes! When a beginning student in arithmetic makes mistakes it may look like his math is authentic. But one who understands math is not fooled by the appearance, knowing that all mistakes made with numerals NEVER touch or change the laws that ALWAYS govern numbers.. Kirsten, mortals are like numeral and immortals are like numbers. God is always GOOD and so is spiritual man, reflecting Love ALWAYS GOOD!
Soaring Dove, Thank you for trying to explain. Here is what I see – The person who believes they will die are believing something incorrect. They can believe it for a long time or a short time but eventually, they will come to understand life doesn’t end – maybe when an event occurs that is supposed to result in death but even then they may just think they got lucky and did not die. And, as you have said, they can make an error in math but it doesn’t change the principle of 2 + 2 = 4. They can believe 2 + 2 = 5. But, we know it is not correct. We also know they will eventually figure that mistake out.
What they believe doesn’t define mathematics, life or God. God defines God and everything. But, we are all here together so if someone is believing a lie, it is having an effect on all of us unless we turn away and are blind to it. But, that does not address it. So, in addressing it, we see that that person is not “acting” like God’s child or an immortal. “Hey, wake up!” You are whole and your true birthright is a child of God. Or, correcting the equation and using science to correct it. Two apples plus two apples gives us 4 apples. Or, you do not need to sin/try to get attention because you are already loved. There is no lack. Thinking you are not a child of God is a horribly uncomfortable place to be. And, it should be so it promotes change and one comes in line with truth. That is how I see it. Am I understanding you correctly?
This certainly went in many directions and I have much to think about. I do remember my teacher and friend saying it begins with correct identification- the truth of who you are. It takes deepening in thought and practice consistently to fully identify with the truth of our being and not be distracted. I always thought of material world as a shadow of the real world. But I guess a shadow would have to originate from something. It just seemed like a dark, distorted image of the real world.
I am looking forward to Evan’s reply to Kirsten’s comment. I continue to grow from this blog and all who share the TRUTH. It truly gives me great comfort. Thank you Evan and all❣️
Wow, thank you Evan, to give us the metaphysical and spiritual view of this matter!
If we believe we are mortals and die, for what are we living – oh well yes for our family and children, of course.
But if we love to learn in Christian Science, that we are immortal, spiritual, loved ideas of God who live to express God joyfully, then we live with expectance of good and joy and of God’s guidance to Truth and the healing divine Love and one becomes a better man, as Evan says in his lectures – thank you Evan!!! 🙂
Thanks again Evan for another wonderful wake-up call. Your spiritual metaphysical blogs
are helping all of us every day and also the world if we are doing our work. I have to agree with
Gillian and Uta, these other questions never came to mind. When I went back to your blog , it
was so simple, as children of God, true ideas of God, we are immortal and living now in
eternal life. How can we think we are mortal now.
It helps to understand that our joint heir is Christ and not the Adam dream, from which we are ‘entirely separate’ as this week’s Lesson states. One of the commands on the front of our text book is ‘Raise the dead’ and as we progress in our study of Christian Science, we will reach the point where we can do that, as Science and Health states on page 233 that God’s law ‘demands of us only what we can certainly fulfil.’