Is There no Death?
From Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy
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1 JESUS not only declared himself " the way" and "the
truth," but also "the life." God is Life; and as
3 there is but one God, there can be but one Life. Must
man die, then, in order to inherit eternal life and enter
heaven?
6 Our Master said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Then God and heaven, or Life, are present, and death is
not the real stepping-stone to Life and happiness. They
9 are now and here; and a change in human consciousness,
from sin to holiness, would reveal this wonder of being.
Because God is ever present, no boundary of time can
12 separate us from Him and the heaven of His presence;
and because God is Life, all Life is eternal.
Is it unchristian to believe there is no death? Not
15 unless it be a sin to believe that God is Life and All-in-all.
Evil and disease do not testify of Life and God.
Human beings are physically mortal, but spiritually
18 immortal. The evil accompanying physical personality
is illusive and mortal; but the good attendant upon spirit-
ual individuality is immortal. Existing here and now,
21 this unseen individuality is real and eternal. The so-
called material senses, and the mortal mind which is mis-
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1 named man, take no cognizance of spiritual individuality,
which manifests immortality, whose Principle is God.
3 To God alone belong the indisputable realities of being.
Death is a contradiction of Life, or God; therefore it is
not in accordance with His law, but antagonistic thereto.
6 Death, then, is error, opposed to Truth, — even the
unreality of mortal mind, not the reality of that Mind
which is Life. Error has no life, and is virtually without
9 existence. Life is real; and all is real which proceeds
from Life and is inseparable from it.
It is unchristian to believe in the transition called ma–
12 terial death, since matter has no life, and such misbelief
must enthrone another power, an imaginary life, above
the living and true God. A material sense of life robs
15 God, by declaring that not He alone is Life, but that some-
thing else also is life, — thus affirming the existence and
rulership of more gods than one. This idolatrous and
18 false sense of life is all that dies, or appears to die.
The opposite understanding of God brings to light
Life and immortality. Death has no quality of Life; and
21 no divine fiat commands us to believe in aught which is
unlike God, or to deny that He is Life eternal.
Life as God, moral and spiritual good, is not seen in
24 the mineral, vegetable, or animal kingdoms. Hence the
inevitable conclusion that Life is not in these kingdoms,
and that the popular views to this effect are not up to the
27 Christian standard of Life, or equal to the reality of being,
whose Principle is God.
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1 When "the Word" is "made flesh" among mortals,
the Truth of Life is rendered practical on the body.
3 Eternal Life is partially understood; and sickness, sin,
and death yield to holiness, health, and Life, — that is,
to God. The lust of the flesh and the pride of physical
6 life must be quenched in the divine essence, — that om-
nipotent Love which annihilates hate, that Life which
knows no death.
9 "Who hath believed our report?" Who understands
these sayings? He to whom the arm of the Lord is re-
vealed. He loves them from whom divine Science removes
12 human weakness by divine strength, and who unveil the
Messiah, whose name is Wonderful.
Man has no underived power. That selfhood is false
15 which opposes itself to God, claims another father, and
denies spiritual sonship; but as many as receive the knowl-
edge of God in Science must reflect, in some degree, the
18 power of Him who gave and giveth man dominion over
all the earth.
As soldiers of the cross we must be brave, and let Science
21 declare the immortal status of man, and deny the evidence
of the material senses, which testify that man dies.
As the image of God, or Life, man forever reflects and
24 embodies Life, not death. The material senses testify
falsely. They presuppose that God is good and that man
is evil, that Deity is deathless, but that man dies, losing
27 the divine likeness.
Science and material sense conflict at all points, from
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1 the revolution of the earth to the fall of a sparrow. It is
mortality only that dies.
3 To say that you and I, as mortals, will not enter this
dark shadow of material sense, called death, is to assert
what we have not proved; but man in Science never dies.
6 Material sense, or the belief of life in matter, must perish,
in order to prove man deathless.
As Truth supersedes error, and bears the fruits of Love,
9 this understanding of Truth subordinates the belief in
death, and demonstrates Life as imperative in the divine
order of being.
12 Jesus declares that they who believe his sayings will
never die; therefore mortals can no more receive ever-
lasting life by believing in death, than they can become
15 perfect by believing in imperfection and living imperfectly.
Life is God, and God is good. Hence Life abides in
man, if man abides in good, if he lives in God, who holds
18 Life by a spiritual and not by a material sense of being.
A sense of death is not requisite to a proper or true
sense of Life, but beclouds it. Death can never alarm or
21 even appear to him who fully understands Life. The
death-penalty comes through our ignorance of Life, — of
that which is without beginning and without end, — and
24 is the punishment of this ignorance.
Holding a material sense of Life, and lacking the spirit-
ual sense of it, mortals die, in belief, and regard all things
27 as temporal. A sense material apprehends nothing strictly
belonging to the nature and office of Life. It conceives
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1 and beholds nothing but mortality, and has but a feeble
concept of immortality.
3 In order to reach the true knowledge and consciousness
of Life, we must learn it of good. Of evil we can never
learn it, because sin shuts out the real sense of Life, and
6 brings in an unreal sense of suffering and death.
Knowledge of evil, or belief in it, involves a loss of the
true sense of good, God; and to know death, or to believe
9 in it, involves a temporary loss of God, the infinite and
only Life.
Resurrection from the dead (that is, from the belief in
12 death) must come to all sooner or later; and they who
have part in this resurrection are they upon whom the
second death has no power.
15 The sweet and sacred sense of the permanence of man’s
unity with his Maker can illumine our present being with
a continual presence and power of good, opening wide
18 the portal from death into Life; and when this Life shall
appear "we shall be like Him," and we shall go to the
Father, not through death, but through Life; not through
21 error, but through Truth.
All Life is Spirit, and Spirit can never dwell in its antag-
onist, matter. Life, therefore, is deathless, because God
24 cannot be the opposite of Himself. In Christian Science
there is no matter; hence matter neither lives nor dies.
To the senses, matter appears to both live and die, and
27 these phenomena appear to go on ad infinitum; but such
a theory implies perpetual disagreement with Spirit.
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1 Life, God, being everywhere, it must follow that death
can be nowhere; because there is no place left for it.
3 Soul, Spirit, is deathless. Matter, sin, and death are
not the outcome of Spirit, holiness, and Life. What then
are matter, sin, and death ? They can be nothing except
6 the results of material consciousness; but material con-
sciousness can have no real existence, because it is not a
living — that is to say, a divine and intelligent — reality.
9 That man must be vicious before he can be virtuous,
dying before he can be deathless, material before he can
be spiritual, is an error of the senses; for the very opposite
12 of this error is the genuine Science of being.
Man, in Science, is as perfect and immortal now, as
when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons
15 of God shouted for joy."
With Christ, Life was not merely a sense of existence,
but a sense of might and ability to subdue material con-
18 ditions. No wonder "people were astonished at his doc-
trine; for he taught them as one having authority, and
not as the scribes."
21 As defined by Jesus, Life had no beginning; nor was
it the result of organization, or of an infusion of power
into matter. To him, Life was Spirit.
24 Truth, defiant of error or matter, is Science, dispelling
a false sense and leading man into the true sense of self-
hood and Godhood; wherein the mortal does not develop
27 the immortal, nor the material the spiritual, but wherein
true manhood and womanhood go forth in the radiance
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1 of eternal being and its perfections, unchanged and
unchangeable.
3 This generation seems too material for any strong dem-
onstration over death, and hence cannot bring out the
infinite reality of Life, — namely, that there is no death,
6 but only Life. The present mortal sense of being is too
finite for anchorage in infinite good, God, because mortals
now believe in the possibility that Life can be evil.
9 The achievement of this ultimatum of Science, com-
plete triumph over death, requires time and immense
spiritual growth.
12 I have by no means spoken of myself, I cannot speak
of myself as "sufficient for these things." I insist only
upon the fact, as it exists in divine Science, that man dies
15 not, and on the words of the Master in support of this
verity, — words which can never "pass away till all be
fulfilled."
18 Because of these profound reasons I urge Christians
to have more faith in living than in dying. I exhort them
to accept Christ’s promise, and unite the influence of their
21 own thoughts with the power of his teachings, in the
Science of being. This will interpret the divine power to
human capacity, and enable us to apprehend, or lay hold
24 upon, "that for which," as Paul says in the third chapter
of Philippians, we are also "apprehended of [or grasped
by] Christ Jesus," — the ever-present Life which knows
27 no death, the omnipresent Spirit which knows no matter.
