Intellectuals claim that people are born, live, and then die. Intellectuals also claim that time is an illusion.
If time as we know it doesn’t truly exist — that is, if all moments exists simultaneously — then how can we both be alive and not be alive?
If one is an illusion, then the other is as well.
Therefore — since there is no time — there is no birth, no growth, no rise, no prime, no fall, no decay, no death, no gain, no loss, and no mortality.
Mind produces all action. If the action proceeds from Truth, from immortal Mind, there is harmony; but mortal mind is liable to any phase of belief. (SH, p. 419)
What material senses detect, and attempt to explain, is simply too limited to give worthwhile results. The human mind — the intellect that intellectuals rely upon — cannot understand this great creation, because the human mind is a part of the illusion. That same human mind perceives evil as being real, and often imagines the power that created the universe to simply be a great and powerful (and vengeful and capricious) type of human mind, or that it was simply a series of accidents.
Since “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1: 3), we can know that whatever “stands the test of time” is outside of the illusion, and thus was made by God. We know this because whatever exists only inside the illusion is temporal, mortal, material, and ungodly. That is how we know that God is good, and is Truth, Life, Love, Spirit, Soul, Principle, and Mind. Only these, and their expressions, transcend.
This is also how we know that Christ Jesus and Mrs. Eddy exemplified their teachings: Their demonstrations counter what the illusion would have us believe — namely, that sin, disease, and death are real. Even within the so-called laws of human systems we see that sin, disease, and death just don’t hold up. They do not exist, and there is no reason to put faith in anything other than God.
I am so grateful for this lesson, and for all the resources this church offers! Week after week, I am gaining more of the ability to “Speak the truth to every form of error.” (SH, p. 418), and it is all because of what I am learning here about Christian Science. Thank you!