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Home > Books > The Structure of the Christian Science Textbook—Our Way of Life, Vol. I: Revelation of the Structure
The Structure of the Christian Science Textbook—Our Way of Life, Vol. I: Revelation of the Structure
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Product Code: 0-85241-071-9
Manufacturer: Kappeler Institute Publishing
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Cloth, 204 pages
Level:
SUBJECT(s):
The Science of Christian Science
The Structure of the Christian Science Textbook
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RELATED RECORDINGS:
M-34, The Structure of the Christian Science Textbook: The logic of the 16 chapters (5 hours, audio)
The entire C-1 and C-2 series of recordings are on the structure of the Textbook
X-29, The Structure of the Christian Science Textbook—Our Way of Life, Vol. I: Revelation of the Structure (audiobook) (11 hours)
SYNOPSIS: This book is revolutionary. It reveals a coherent, ordered Science and system of divine laws underlying Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. This order follows in an uninterrupted sequence, from Chapter I, "Prayer," through Chapter XVI, "The Apocalypse." The structure of Being establishes itself as the structure of the Textbook—as it does for all revealed texts, including the Bible. The more one understands the Textbook through its divinely scientific, spiritual structure, the more the structure of Being becomes the structure of our consciousness and our being. The order of the chapters becomes our way of life and our teacher.
CONTENTS:
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1: Prayer
Chapter 2: Atonement and Eucharist
Chapter 3: Marriage
Chapter 4: Christian Science versus Spiritualism
SUMMARY OF THE WORD-CHAPTERS
Chapter 5: Animal Magnetism Unmasked
Chapter 6: Science, Theology, Medicine
Chapter 7: Physiology
Chapter 8: Footsteps of Truth
SUMMARY OF THE CHRIST-CHAPTERS
Chapter 9: Creation
Chapter 10: Science of Being
Chapter 11: Some Objections Answered
Chapter 12: Christian Science Practice
SUMMARY OF THE CHRISTIANITY-CHAPTERS
Chapter 13: Teaching Christian Science
Chapter 14: Recapitulation
Chapter 15: Genesis
Chapter 16: The Apocalypse
SUMMARY OF THE SCIENCE-CHAPTERS
Chapter 17: A Brief Summary of the Textbook-story
Chapter 18: The Textbook: Our Way of Life
Chapter 19: The Textbook: Our Teacher
EXCERPT:
From Max Kappeler, The Structure of the Christian Science Textbook—Our Way of Life, Vol. I: Revelation of the Structure, pp. 2–6.
As you know, a textbook is primarily a book of instruction presenting the fundamentals of a subject in a systematic and ordered way. As a rule, a textbook starts very simply, with more or less self-evident statements, and its purpose is then logically to build up the subject step-by-step in order to bring it to a final climax. Now the Christian Science textbook is built up in this way too. It is by no means just a collection of detached metaphysical statements; it is one consecutive, ordered story. As the author says herself: "Principle is not to be found in fragmentary ideas" (S&H 302:2).
At this point, you may ask me why it is that we were not able to perceive the continuous thread running through the Textbook when we had read and studied it earnestly and sincerely for so long. Why was its structure not seen at first glance? Is it not strange, for instance, that we could read a chapter such as "Atonement and Eucharist" once, twice, a dozen, or even a hundred times and yet fail to grasp the fundamental story in it? It is true that we may have been able to understand the metaphysical meaning of individual sentences and may even have gained some vague sense of the chapter as a whole, but in no way did we perceive its build-up and the significance of its structure. Now why? After all, the book is written in the English language, which we all know, and yet we did not understand. If we take any other Textbook or book of learning, after some earnest study we are able to follow the line of reasoning going through the various chapters and through the whole book, and then we know how the whole subject is built up from beginning to end. Why can we not do the same with the Christian Science textbook? The reason is that the Christian Science textbook is written in a symbolism and terminology that are quite foreign to the ordinary educated sense of thinking, reading, and speaking. It speaks the language of Spirit, and not the language of beliefs cultured through thousands of years of traditional thinking and feeling. Any other book can be grasped quickly because it is written in our traditional terminology and symbolism, whereas the meaning of the Textbook will always remain sealed until the key to the language of Spirit is found and cultured.
To grasp the full beauty and import of the Textbook, it is indispensable to have a thorough knowledge of the identified and classified concepts of the 7 synonymous terms for God, and also to have cultured that knowledge through a deep study of the Bible. The moment our spiritual sense is cultured in the tones of the fundamental elements of divine metaphysics, the moment we entertain in consciousness the ideas of the infinite as clearly identified and classified concepts of the divine system, the Textbook begins to yield its treasures and to reveal itself as an ordered, spiritual story. But without this scientifically cultured spiritual sense the Textbook remains a closed book.
This may remind you somewhat of our experience with the Bible. Ten years ago, through the elucidation of Mrs. Eddy's "Key to the Scriptures," John W. Doorly was able to reveal the Bible as telling one great, ordered, spiritual story. Up to that time, the Bible had been to us just a huge collection of beautiful verses and short inspiring stories, but through the key to the Scriptures all these disconnected narratives merged into one vast spiritual story growing "…in beauty and consistency from one grand root…" (S&H 341:7). In a similar way, this is what is now happening with the Textbook. It looks as if this is the next step that is being forced upon every earnest Christian Scientist. When considered with a scientifically cultured sense, the Textbook becomes an entirely different book. After these talks I am quite sure the Textbook will be a new book to you, an open book. Although I am only going to give you a very distilled sense of the ordered story running through the Textbook, and of the whole structure so far as I perceive in it, it will be enough to kindle in you a much greater esteem and reverence for this wonderful book and its author.
Now, in order to unlock the Textbook, we must not only have a cultured sense of the 7 synonymous terms for God, but also use a different method of investigation from the one used when studying only certain terms, such as reflection, substance, supply, and so on, or when investigating merely the synonymous terms for God. To analyze the Textbook in its coherency, we cannot begin to grasp its story by focusing our attention on single words or sentences or on single synonymous terms for God. A much broader view is required. As each paragraph may contain some 20, 30, or even more different ideas, and possibly ideas of all the 7 synonymous terms for God, one cannot rely only on single words in order to detect the main story. Even individual sentences cannot be relied upon as a pointer or key, as they may be merely interpolations, explanations, illustrations, parenthetical remarks, or short recapitulations.
The method to be used is to find the main subjects of a chapter, and to determine a main subject one has to seek the common spiritual denominator running perhaps through many paragraphs or pages. If we have a cultured sense of the synonymous terms for God, we can easily detect these subjects, because they usually change rather abruptly from one to the other. When we have identified the various subjects in a chapter and we consider them in their ordered sequence, they provide the story of the chapter.
However, this in itself would be of little value were it not for the grand and wonderful fact that the subjects follow the definite order of Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love, the order given in the definition of God (S&H 465:10). This is indeed an astounding point for it proves the order of the 7 synonymous terms for God in the definition of God to be a definite, fundamental order. Thus, all queries and uncertainty as to whether the order of the synonymous terms for God is a fundamental one or not are answered in the affirmative on the highest authority, the ordered story of the Textbook itself. We can only honor Mrs. Eddy and her discovery by accepting this divine fact.
Having found the story of each chapter we can go one step further and consider the sequence of these stories through the 16 chapters. Here again we shall encounter the astonishing fact that far from forming an indefinite sequence, the chapters follow the definite order of Word, Christ, Christianity, Science, that is, the order of the four sides of the Holy City. Because these four aspects of God refer to the one Being, they naturally reflect each other, and so we have each aspect reflected four times making in all 16 aspects of the infinite One. These are depicted in greater detail through the 16 chapters of the Textbook, beginning with "Prayer" and ending with "The Apocalypse."
From what I have indicated so far, you will already have gathered the impression, which later will gain conviction, that the Textbook is one great systematic elaboration of the fundamentals of Christian Science, that is, of the 7 synonymous terms for God and the four sides of the Holy City. Thus, the Textbook is seen to be one coherent, systematic whole.
This vision of a spiritually scientific, ordered presentation of divine facts is like balm to a scientific mind. Nothing is so comforting as to know that a subject is presented and can be learned in an ordered way. What I am going to show to you is not in the slightest degree academic, as some of you may think. On the contrary, a knowledge of the contents of the Textbook touches the very core of being. The subject of the Textbook is Being itself, the being of each one of us; and by finding in the Textbook an ordered sequence of divine facts, we find in it also the ordered way of being, the ordered way of Life. Can you grasp what I mean? Christian Science is not a mere philosophy, Christian Science is a living, practical, metaphysical system of being. In other words, if we read and study the Textbook, we are not just reading and studying "about" metaphysics. No, reading and studying the Textbook is giving birth to our true being, and this birth is ordered. The essence of the Textbook is life, its structure is not a mental exercise.
So know from the very start that this Textbook is not only the structure of what we call divine metaphysics, but that pondering it—not just reading it—is imbibing the structure of our true being. That is why at the end of the Textbook in "The Apocalypse" we read: "'Go and take the little book … Take it, and eat it up…' Take divine Science. Read this book from beginning to end. Study it, ponder it…"—and further Mrs. Eddy tells us to eat the divine body of this Principle. So do eat it up, "eat" your way through the book, make its underlying substance your very own. Then, finally you are the living book.
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