5+8x4/3+7-2x6+9x8/2+5-13+23-17/2+45x0=?
More than 40 years ago the students in Mrs. Abel's sixth-grade arithmetic class bent over their old wooden slant-topped desks concentrating on a problem similar to the one above. Similar, but actually much longer--it was probably two lines and included more complex numbers. Pencils scratched, erasers rubbed as the students diligently computed the result. Everyone except my best friend Steve, that is. Presently Mrs.Abel looked up from grading the papers on her desk and noticed Steve looking out the window and said, "Well, now Stephen, have you arrived at the answer or are you just daydreaming?" Most of the class, including myself, were astounded when Steve respectfully (remember, this was more than 40 years ago) answered, "Yes, Mrs. Abel, I've got the answer!" Mrs. Abel looked intently over her reading glasses and said in her imperious schoolmarm voice, "And what is the answer, Stephen?" "The answer is zero, Mrs. Abel" he replied. "That's excellent, Stephen, you are absolutely correct, but how did you arrive at the answer so quickly?" "It's simple," Steve answered, "The last operative is times zero and anything times zero is always zero." Perhaps as a precursor of my challenges in higher math later in school, I was a little slow picking up on this fundamental fact of mathematics. For the longest time I kept focusing on all those numbers in the problem and thinking, "Yes, but all those numbers..."
While this incident receded from my conscious thought it apparently remained with me to be remembered when many years later after becoming a serious student of Christian Science, I was faced with a seemingly serious health problem which didn't appear to yield. One day, when yearning to know what more I needed to understand, I was suddenly back in Mrs. Abel's arithmetic class hearing Steve say, "...anything times zero is always zero."
I realized two things, one, I still hadn't fully accepted the very simple mathematical principle of "anything times nothing is always nothing" and secondly, ,this was very profoundly applicable to the practice of Christian Science, thus I began a serious effort to get a real understanding of the mathematical principle and to apply it to the practice of Christian Science. Gradually it became clearer that one had to, as my friend Steve had grasped--incidentally, he went on to have a very successful career in compuer science--understand the "nothingness of nothing" and to remain focused on that nothingness rather than to be distracted by all those numbers and operations preceding it. That zero was nothing and its' nothingness negated all that preceded it.
And how does this apply to Christian Science? Very simply, we learn in Christian Science that matter and all that pertains to it is an error of thought--mortal thought. Our task, therefore is to remain focused on that single fact until we understand it thoroughly. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science states very succinctly in her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, (p. 346) "The nothingness of nothing is plain; but we need to understand that error is nothing...in order to prove the somethingness -- yea, the allness -- of Truth." (emphasis added)
Thus, it doesn't matter how many or how real the symptoms of a disease appear, we need to focus our thought on that "times zero" operative until we understand it. Clearly. Not just intellectually. Not just unreasoning acceptance, but real comprehension. Then, when we understandingly apply that "times zero" operative to whatever matter and mortal mind are claiming, those claims will disappear because they are clearly understood as nothing.
"...matter is mortal error."
As Mary Baker Eddy states in her "Scientific Statement of Being" in the Christian Science Textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 468). And error has no essence, presence, power or activity. It is simply nothing.
Using the "times zero" example, it is easy to see how Mrs. Eddy could state that, "There is no life, truth, intelligence nor substance in matter" in that same "Scientific Statement of Being." No scientific enquiry or research has ever once identified a single atom or element of "life" in matter. Thus no matter how many atoms or elements are combined in whatever combination can be humanly conceived, the result will not be alive. Forty-five duodecillion atoms are not and cannot be alive because not one of them has any "life" within itself. DNA research purports to outline how combinations of these inert atoms can determine aspects of life. But when one realizes that not one of those atoms has a single element of "life" within it, the fallacy of the DNA theory becomes readily apparent.
The same goes for intelligence. No scientific enquiry has ever identified an atom or element of "intelligence." Thus no matter how many atoms or elements are combined together, the result will still be non-intelligent. Samuel Greenwood, a prominent early worker in the Christian Science movement once wrote, "..it is impossible and inconceivable to impart consciousness and intelligence to nothingness." (1940 Association address: "Preexistence")
No matter how many apparent "somethings" there seem to be, when the "times zero" operative is applied to them they all amount to nothing. The clear understanding of this fact can result in physical healings. Take, for example, a Biblical example from Jesus' healing ministry--the case of the man at the pool of Bethesda. To mortal thought he had been crippled for "thirty and eight years.' However when Jesus understandingly applied the "times zero" operative to the mortal picture, all the arguments and mental pictures of a crippled man were instantaneously relegated to their native nothingness and the man was healed.
