Article August 23, 1924 Issue

The attitude of Christian Scientists toward his satanic...

Charles E. Heitman,—Jamestown

Evening Journal

The attitude of Christian Scientists toward his satanic majesty is definitely indicated by Jesus himself when he said: "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." Surely, if there were in reality such a locality as hell, it would be a most appropriate abiding place for the father of lies. We have it, however, on the definite authority of the Master, that from the beginning this evil one abode not in the truth, which is equivalent to saying that he has no real existence, since, according to the Scriptures, God is Truth and Truth is infinite. Obviously, therefore, that which abides not in the infinity of Truth abides not at all. According to the teachings of Christian Science, hell and heaven are not localities but opposite states of consciousness. Christian Science holds that just as sin makes its own hell so does goodness insure its own heaven. It further maintains that as we come into an understanding of God as Life, Truth, and Love, as we learn to obey the impulses of good and reject evil, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, sin with its unhappy concomitants—sorrow, sickness, and death—will gradually lessen and finally disappear. As this process of spiritual regeneration goes on, man is lifted out of that depressing and destructive mental condition which may very properly be described as hell, and, in a degree at least, becomes conscious of that harmonious mental state which the Bible describes as heaven. Bearing specifically on this point, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has written as follows in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 242): "There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no other reality—to have no other consciousness of life—than good, God and His reflection, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses."