Article September 2, 1922 Issue

The claim of those who do not understand spiritual healing...

Robert G. Steel, Committee on Publication for the State of Michigan,

Jackson News

The claim of those who do not understand spiritual healing,—that cures in Christian Science are wrought through a materially mental process by Satanic power, —has its counterpart in the Bible. It is recorded in Matthew's gospel that when Jesus cast out the devil of dumbness, so that "the dumb spake," the Pharisees charged him with casting out devils through Beelzebub, the prince of devils. Jesus replied that "every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation," which was only another way of saying that the human mind which produces disease is powerless to heal it. It can fairly be assumed that Jesus knew better than his Pharisaical critics the method he used in the accomplishment of his marvelous works; and he further enlightened them in these words: "But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writing on page 132 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," correctly states the critic's attitude in these words: "To-day, as of yore, unconscious of the reappearing of the spiritual idea, blind belief shuts the door upon it, and condemns the cure of the sick and sinning if it is wrought on any but a material and a doctrinal theory."

In entire agreement with the Bible, Christian Science denies that God is the author of sin, or indeed of anything evil, in whatever phase it seems to present itself, since all that God made He declared to be very good. Sin is neither real nor eternal, since the Bible tells us that what God made will stand forever. Christian Science does not deny that to the mortal, material, carnal mind—the mind which Paul says "is enmity against God" —sin seems to exist. Sin is, therefore, a false belief and is destroyed, as Jesus destroyed it, by knowing the truth about it, and about God. A sick and sinning mortal is not the image of God, omnipotent and omnipresent Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. Only as the false beliefs of sin, sickness, and discord are destroyed can the true reflection appear. They cannot be destroyed by dependence on another's vicarious efforts, for the Bible tells us we must work out our own salvation. And so we find that the Christian Science teaching relative to the atonement follows naturally and logically from the plain statements of the Bible, even though it may differ from the various so-called scholastic doctrines on the subject. Mrs. Eddy writes on page 18 of Science and Health as follows: "Atonement is the exemplification of man's unity with God, whereby man reflects divine Truth, Life, and Love." And on page 23 of the same book she says, "The atonement is a hard problem in theology, but its scientific explanation is, that suffering is an error of sinful sense which Truth destroys, and that eventually both sin and suffering will fall at the feet of everlasting Love."

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