Article March 8, 1913 Issue

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE VERSUS PHILOSOPHY

M. LOUISE BAUM.

Inquirers into Christian Science sometimes wonder why careful teachers of the subject do not apply the term philosophy to it as well as the term Science. Mrs. Eddy rarely uses the word philosophy as applied to Christianity, though in the Christian Science text-book there occurs a reference to "the philosophy, Science, and proof of Christianity" (p. 271). This distinction in the use of terms is, however, clear to those who know anything of the endless speculation which has been set forth under the name philosophy The word itself means a love of knowledge, but a love of knowledge does not always mean that true knowledge has been attained. The term Science, however, sharply differentiates between mere theorizing and definite knowledge, or understanding which is capable of proof.

There has been too much speculation in religion, and too long has humanity divided what it has considered truth into different fields, the sacred and the secular, the physical and the metaphysical, etc. Jesus was the most practical of men, for he bade his disciples pay the tribute money, he cured disease on every side, he changed water into wine for the use of the wedding guests, he fed the multitude, he calmed the storm. If there had been any essential gain to humanity in the research of the worldly-wise, Jesus would not have discouraged our devotion to such research by describing spiritual understanding as the "pearl of great price" for which men should gladly exchange all lesser pearls of human knowledge. Yet many a man today who acknowledges Jesus as Lord and Master is still at work among the phenomena of matter and of the human mentality as earnestly as if the great demonstrator of Life and Truth had not plainly declared the futility of such study of mortal mind and its material phenomena.

Idealistic philosophy, past and present, is sometimes supposed either to be the source of Mrs. Eddy's ideas or to coincide with them; yet it stands absolutely apart from Christian Science in the fact that it does not acknowledge Christ Jesus as the great metaphysician. Mrs. Eddy drew her whole system of teaching from the Bible. She looked to the demonstrable statements of the Master for her authority. She embodied in the title of the text-book of Christian Science the words, "Key to the Scriptures," and she proved that Science and Health is indeed that Key, by the signs which follow even a slight understanding of its teaching.

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