|
|
Home > Books > He Shall Never See Death (St. John 8:51)
He Shall Never See Death (St. John 8:51)
|
Product Code: NeverSeeDeathB
Manufacturer: Kappeler Institute Publishing
|
Booklet, 21 pages
Level:
SUBJECT(s):
Healing and Christian Science Practice
RELATED RECORDINGS: none
SYNOPSIS: To resolve the question of death, the Science of Life compels us to turn to God, to Life itself. To begin, we turn to Science and Health and study the references to Life. This booklet presents a spiritually logical exposition of deathless Life as defined by what the 7 synonymous terms for God say about Life in the Textbook on pages 426:23–430:12.
CONTENTS:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Mind's declaration about Life: Death is an illusion of human belief, which must be relinquished. (426:23-32)
Chapter 3: Spirit's declaration of Life: Life is spiritual and therefore not dependent on matter. Spirit is real; death has no reality. (427:1-12)
Chapter 4: Soul's declaration about Life: In Science, nothing can interfere with man's being.(427:13-25)
Chapter 5: Principle's declaration about Life: Through obedience to God, we demonstrate eternal life. (427:26-428:14)
Chapter 6: Life's declaration about Life: Life is; if man consecrates his existence to Life, he can experience present immortality. In other words, he can overcome death. (428:15-29)
Chapter 7: Truth's declaration about Life: Through an understanding of Life, mortals awaken to the consciousness of man's dominion over death. (428:30-429:18)
Chapter 8: Love's declaration about Life: All-embracing Life has neither beginning nor end. (429:19-430:12)
Chapter 9: Summary
EXCERPT:
From Max Kappeler, "He Shall Never See Death" (St. John 8:51), pp. 1–2.For the most part, we live in the firm conviction that earthly life ends in the inescapable experience we call death. Death, this seeming inevitability, creates bewilderment and dread in us, because no one seems to know what death really is. This ignorance, in turn, produces fear, the sense of helplessness. We must at some time face death, yet it remains an enigma to us, a mystery fraught with many unanswered questions. What is death? When and why does it come? What gives rise to the phenomenon called death? Is there life after death?
However, these very questions raise other questions, particularly about the nature and meaning of life. What is life, that it simply ends in death? What kind of life ends when the physical body dies? Do we have indisputable evidence that life ends when the body ceases to function, or do we simply assume this uncritically? Are these even the right questions to bring into focus about what constitutes life? As with questions about death, we are confronted with our own ignorance as to the nature of life. Even those we depend on for information—scientists, philosophers, and religious leaders—cannot agree on answers to these questions. We discover that we are not starting from fact or proof, but from unfounded belief. Our sense of helplessness increases, for if the world's most respected thinkers cannot agree, where shall we turn? We are finally compelled to ask: If all our concepts about life and death spring from unfounded belief, is there some absolute truth that transcends and corrects our belief-based sense of life? Can we escape our own ignorance—our groundless beliefs and false questions—to arrive at the real truth of being?
In this way, the problem of death urges us to examine the nature and meaning of life. We are forced to seek the absolute truth of life, and this truth can be found only in the Life that is God. Thus, rather than asking wrong and misleading questions based on false concepts of Life, we are forced to discover the nature of Life itself. We must ask: What constitutes a right concept of Life? How do we arrive at such a right concept? In other words, is there a Science of Life that Life which is God through which we can learn the true nature and meaning of life and so solve the mystery of death?
Christian Science presents such a Science and, through the Science of Life, resolves the problem of death. How? The overall strategy of Christian Science for solving any problem is to reason from what is true—from Truth—instead of from ignorance. Only Truth, the Truth that is God, can explain what really exists, expose the errors of ignorance, and right them. This strategy of reasoning from Truth can be applied to the phenomenon called death. If we wish to analyze the problem of death rightly, we must first know what Life is, for Life is the Truth of being. As we shall see through using this method, that which we call death is not an entity in itself, but is merely Life misunderstood. Death becomes a false concept of Life: the notion of the absence of Life, a limitation of Life, a misconception of what Life truly is. Life itself is God. In its intrinsic nature, Life is the eternal, indestructible is-ness of being. That which is eternal self-existence cannot at the same time be reduced to non-existence—to death. Therefore, there is and can be no death. But what specific steps of divinely scientific reasoning enable us not only to arrive at these radical conclusions, but also to defend and demonstrate them in the face of the human mind's false beliefs?
To resolve the question of death, the Science of Life compels us to turn to God, the Life itself. We must gain an understanding of Life that is as correct and as comprehensive as possible, How? To begin, we turn to the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, to study the references of Life, a synonymous term for God.
|
|
|
|