Understanding is the spiritual firmament, whereby human conception distinguishes between Truth and error. Firmament. The divine Mind, not matter, creates all identities; and they are forms of thought, the ideas of Spirit, present to Mind only, never to mindless matter.
Genesis i. 7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
Spirit imparts the understanding which leads into all Truth. The Psalmist saith: “The Lord on high is Understanding. mightier than the noise of many waters, — yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.” Spiritual sight is the discernment of spiritual Good. Understanding is the line of demarcation between the real and unreal. It brings the things of Truth, Life, and Love into a demonstration, which gives the divine sense and spiritual signification of all things in Christian Science.
This understanding is not intellectual, is not aided by scholarly attainments. The fact of all things is brought to light in Spirit. God's ideas reflect Origination. the immortal, unerring, and infinite. Mortal, erring, and finite are human beliefs, which apportion themselves the task of distinguishing between the false and the true. Objects utterly unlike their original do not reflect that original. Therefore matter cannot proceed from God, and it has no real entity. Understanding is a quality of God, a quality which separates Christian Science from supposition, — which makes Truth final, saying, “Truth is all, and there is no error.”
Genesis i. 8. And God called the firmament Heaven; and the evening and the morning were the second day.
