73%
Confidence
Belief overview
God as absolute reality and divine Mind
God is understood as divine Mind, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love.
3
Supportive
0
Contrary
0
Neutral
What it is: Christian Science describes God with strongly spiritual and metaphysical language, including terms like Mind, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love.
How the tradition understands it: God is the supreme reality, totally good and the true basis of being. This understanding guides its view of person, world, prayer, and healing.
Basis and context: The formulation comes mainly from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy in dialogue with the Bible.
Debates and variations: External observers discuss how much this language approaches or distances itself from classical Christian formulations about God.
Documentary evidence
Supportive
1 John 4:8
God is love.
Reference: 1 John 4:8.
Content: The text describes God in terms of love.
Use in debate: Sustains the tradition's language of God as divine Love.
John 4:24
God is Spirit.
Reference: John 4:24.
Content: Jesus affirms that God is Spirit.
Use in debate: One of the most cited bases for the primacy of spiritual reality.
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Mary Baker Eddy's central work for doctrine and hermeneutics of the tradition.
Reference: Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
Content: The book develops the religious metaphysics of the tradition and its spiritual reading of the Bible, prayer, and healing.
Use in debate: The main doctrinal source after the Bible.