The Christian Science Textbook: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy—our way of life and our teacher

M-17, why Study Christian Science as a Science? (3 hours, audio)


SYNOPSIS: This booklet shows the irrefutable order of "the way of Life." When surveying the spiritual evolution from Chapter I "Prayer" to Chapter XVI "The Apocalypse," one is deeply impressed by the overwhelming fact that in the search for truth, Science and Health leads us in an ordered way. As we learn how to understand the structural relationships within the framework of the Textbook, the more clearly we see that, along with the Bible, it is our most reliable teacher.

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CONTENTS:
Chapter 1: The Textbook: Our Way of Life
   - The way of Life in the Textbook: A brief summary [by chapter]
   - The basic order of the 16 chapters: The four orders
   - The Matrix of Christian Science (Textbook-matrix)

Chapter 2: The Textbook: Our Teacher
   - The structural concept of Science
   - Understanding and demonstration are one
   - The one Being interprets itself through the categories of divine metaphysics
   - The Textbook: A revealed text
   - Bible and Textbook constitute a whole, and so forth


EXCERPT:
From Max Kappeler, The Christian Science Textbook: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy—our way of life and our teacher, pp. 1–2, 16–17.

1. The Textbook: Our Way of Life
The irrefutable order of the way of Life. When surveying the spiritual history from the Textbook, Chapter I Prayer to Chapter XVI The Apocalypse, one is deeply impressed by the overwhelming fact that in the search for truth, for our oneness with Being, the Textbook leads us in a definitely ordered and compelling way. It guides us according to an indispensable and unchangeable order of spiritual unfoldment. Moreover, we gain the firm conviction that we will reach the highest goal of this path, which is unity with the divine Being, if we follow the ordered steps without deviating.

Every step has to be lived by experience. Divine Being itself is ordered, and the Christ compels every one of us to pursue this spiritually vital order in our lives. The ordered way, outlined through the order of the 16 main chapters of the Textbook, needs not only to be pondered thoroughly, but it also needs to be lived. The sublime goal cannot be reached faster by trying to go forward with big leaps concerning the theory. It only works step-by-step, and every step has to mold our lives. These steps are laid out in the Textbook. As its order is learned, we are able to follow it in our lives. In doing so, we will experience continual unfoldment as well as continual progress. But if we try to skip one step and live from a standpoint not yet reached through experience, we will appear to "suffer."

Mary Baker Eddy makes this very clear in her article "Put Up They Sword" (Mis. 214:1–:216:6). There she points out that mortal mind tends to move from one extreme to the other. The more immature and inexperienced the student of Christian Science is, the more that student is tempted to adopt an extreme standpoint because they did not work out the first and preliminary steps in the line of development. She warns: "But let us not seek to climb up some other way, as we shall do if we take the end for the beginning or start from wrong motives. Christian Science demands order and truth … My students are at the beginning of their demonstration; they have a long warfare with error in themselves and in others to finish, and they must at this stage use the sword of Spirit … They cannot in the beginning take the attitude, nor adopt the words, that Jesus used at the end of his demonstration." This article ends with the promise of attaining a Sabbath rest, in which we have to first do our work in order to come to that rest.

Willingness to begin in the right way. The way of Life in the Textbook leads us from Chapter I Prayer to the day of rest in the Holy City of Chapter XVI The Apocalypse, that is, from the first to the last chapter. But unless we are willing to begin in the right way with the chapter Prayer and to live it as well as living the following chapters in the order stated, there is no chance in our lives to reach that culmination of the "rest" as symbolized by the Holy City. To begin aright and to continue correctly in the order of Being is accomplishing much. Many try to simply take over the state of consciousness of those who, after much work, have gained a more mature stage through spiritual progress. They are neither prepared nor willing to go the way themselves in achieving spiritual understanding. Are those students, who assume the attitude and use the words that are characteristic of Mary Baker Eddy’s advanced years, willing to go through the necessary purifying trials and experiences that have led to that stage? Are they prepared to let the Christ-idea purify false claims from their whole way of life, step-by-step, so that there is room for the divine revelation to pour in? Mary Baker Eddy proved with her life that she lived the ordered way of Life….

2. The Textbook: Our Teacher
The Textbook is our only teacher. As we learn how to understand the Science of Christian Science by finding the structural relationships within the framework of the Textbook, the more clearly we see that the Textbook itself—and not a personal interpreter—is our most reliable teacher. Then we no longer have to depend on human teachers. Mary Baker Eddy longed to see the day when the students would accept the Textbook as their only teacher. At the publishing of the 50^th edition of the Textbook, The Christian Science Journal, under the guidance of Mary Baker Eddy, published a leading article (April 1891, p. 5): "Is not the new 'Science and Health' intended to be the teacher of the future, thus to do away with incorrect teaching, and oral instruction of human teachers? … The Work is intended for all ages, grades and classes; for the child just beginning to prattle, and for the aged grandsire; for the novitiate just entering upon the study of Christian Science, and for the student who has made, as human language expresses it, the greatest advance. Without wishing to establish any dictum, the writer cannot refrain from giving expression to his conviction that this volume gradually will supersede all teaching, in the technical sense of the word; and further, that it will prove great gain for the Cause of Truth when that day arrives."

The Christian Scientist has always acknowledged the Textbook as the great teacher. Yet, as the Textbook is grasped in its spiritually scientific structure, the clearer it interprets itself to the students and makes its interpretation through personal teachers unnecessary. The leading authority for the student is the structure of Being itself, and not some person. The student does not need to turn to a personal teacher with questions in order to receive an answer, and is not dependent upon the knowledge of someone else. The answer is found in the structure of Being that forms the foundation of the Textbook. The structure of the Textbook itself, through its structural laws, teaches the method of structure-recognition. In this way, the Textbook reveals itself to everyone through newer and deeper insights.