The Open Door of Self-Abnegation

Most men have called self-abnegation a negative subject, for they have often felt it implied giving up something desirable. Comparatively few have understood its positive side; few have glimpsed that it is the open door to the gaining of all reality. To the student of Christian Science there is no subject that demands more earnest consideration, since the human consciousness must have self-abnegation before it can win good: it cannot realize good until it has let go of error. The student must therefore awaken to that necessary understanding of self-abnegation which will enable him to demonstrate his way out of evil into the consciousness of all good.

In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 568) Mrs. Eddy has written, “Self-abnegation, by which we lay down all for Truth, or Christ, in our warfare against error, is a rule in Christian Science.” This leaving all for Christ, this laying down all for Truth, is indeed the rule which must be used from the first moment that Christian Science knocks at one’s mental door; and it must be applied with all its effective activity until every mortal fault, every human belief, has been proved unreal. It is a great comfort to know that as we accept this rule and allow it to act in our thinking and living we may take all our heavenward steps perfectly. Each day, each hour, through obedience to its righteous law, we may gain a fuller, more demonstrable understanding of the Christ, Truth. This will enable us to let go of the myriad forms of selfishness which shut out from our realization our unity with God, and would clog our spiritual progress.

There is no claim of evil which is not based on a belief in a false selfhood. Error in all its forms has for foundation only the unstable groundwork of the belief in a material personal sense of self. From this it is plain to be seen that if one is to be rid of evil, the first necessity is to learn what constitutes true selfhood, that he may therewith deny the beliefs in an opposite. Too long the world has been working to make good out of evil; too long it has believed it could make something holy out of sinful mortality; too long has it been trying to remodel effects.

Jesus declared, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Because men have believed in the reality of a mortal selfhood they have imagined the way of self-abnegation which Jesus thus advocated could be won by renouncing merely the evil effects of a false selfhood. We cannot, however, get rid of an effect without denying its cause. We cannot eliminate the beliefs of pain and pleasure in matter unless we are willing to deny existence in matter. We must hold to the real instead of thinking continually of a false selfhood which we wish to have delivered from evil effects.

While as Christian Scientists we quickly affirm that “now are we the sons of God,” we are not always so quick to see that this declaration is powerful for good only when it is accompanied by a willingness to acknowledge that a selfhood in matter is not the reality of being. In Science and Health (p. 91) Mrs. Eddy tells us, “The denial of material selfhood aids the discernment of man’s spiritual and eternal individuality, and destroys the erroneous knowledge gained from matter or through what are termed the material senses.” In proportion as we learn what we really are as the children of God, Spirit, all that is false must disappear. If, therefore, we have the well-defined purpose to look entirely away from matter to Spirit and to cling steadfastly to the truth that man is always reflecting God,—is spiritual and perfect,—we may then advance with courage and assurance to destroy the pride and egotism with which a false selfhood attempts constantly to vaunt itself.

Self-abnegation, then, is not the attempt to relinquish just enough of evil to patch up physically, mentally, or morally a supposititious mortal selfhood in matter. Instead, it starts from the perfection of Being and renounces all that is unlike God. Rejecting the basis of evil in its claim of existence in matter, it can deny and relinquish every evil effect. Then we shall realize the blessed fruition our Leader promises when on page 100 in “Miscellaneous Writings” she declares, “The five personal senses, that grasp neither the meaning nor the magnitude of self-abnegation, may lose sight thereof; but Science voices unselfish love, unfolds infinite good, leads on irresistible forces, and will finally show the fruits of Love.”