Article December 2, 1922 Issue

Christian Science teaches that God is All, the one and...

J. G. Rowell, Committee on Publication for the State of Missouri,—Kansas City

Church World

Christian Science teaches that God is All, the one and only creator, and that man is made in His image and likeness. In Christian Science, man is never more or less than image and likeness. For him to claim for himself any of the prerogatives of God would be for him to destroy the possibility of his receiving divine assistance. Mrs. Eddy, on page 475 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," speaks of man as having "not a single quality underived from Deity."

The preacher's statement that Christian Science declares the Bible untrue is based upon his own misapprehension that Christian Science has advanced a new and conflicting theory as to creation; whereas the fact is that it is the Bible itself which contains two distinct accounts of creation—one the spiritual, and the other the material. Christian Science calls attention to these two accounts. In the spiritual account, God is recorded as making man in His image and likeness, "male and female." In this creation it is stated that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." In the material account of creation, the Lord God is recorded as making man "of the dust of the ground;" and, later on, seeing Adam's need of a "help meet," "the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman." In this second account, the Lord God is spoken of as the creator, instead of God, who is mentioned as the creator in the first account. He is also recorded as creating "the tree of knowledge of good and evil," and "the serpent," who "was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." Plainly, then, of this second creation which the Lord God had made, it could not be said, as it was in the first record of creation, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

In speaking of these two accounts of creation, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has said on page 523 of Science and Health: "It may be worth while here to remark that, according to the best scholars, there are clear evidences of two distinct documents in the early part of the book of Genesis. One is called the Elohistic, because the Supreme Being is therein called Elohim. The other document is called the Jehovistic, because Deity therein is always called Jehovah,—or Lord God, as our common version translates it." The spiritual account of creation is given in the first chapter of Genesis and the first part of the second chapter. The second, or material, account follows, and the two accounts are opposites. If the spiritual is real, then it is evident that its opposite, the material, must be unreal. Jesus taught, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." Christian Scientists are logically bound to accept as real the first or spiritual account.

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