In Reply to a Churchman's Criticism

W. D. McCrackan

The New York Sun

Mr. Editor:—Dean Hart's letter in your issue of December 21 carries upon its face certain conclusions which appear to me evidently mistaken, and I will ask you for a little space to answer him according to my understanding of the subject.

The dean's quotations from Mrs. Eddy's writings show with considerable accuracy the difference which she reveals between the ideal or perfect man and the mortal or material man. But he fails to appreciate the fact that this mortal or material man is described in Christian Science as a false concept of man, and therefore as unreal.

Christian Science defines the term "real" as applicable only to that which is eternal and indestructible. But mortal man is by the very adjective "mortal," branded as vanishing and destructible.

Nowhere does Mrs. Eddy state or teach that the ideal man ever has been "incarcerated" in mortal man; or that "the Divine being was completely made prisoner by its devilish double;" or that there is any necessity "to deliver the ideal man from the terrible embrace of the mortal man."

While it is true that quoted only two passages of Scripture in proof of the present authority of Christians to heal the sick, still the position of Christian Science is by no means dependent upon these two quotations, for the Bible is full from cover of cases of spiritual healing. Suppose, however, it be granted for the sake of argument that Dean Hart's contention is correct; namely, that the early Christians only healed people "as a sign" to enforce their teachings, then "the present undoubted cases of cure cited by Christian Scientists"—to use the dean's own words —are doubly significant. For then these cures prove that Christian Scientists are following closely in the footsteps of the early Christians, since they are able to show the same sign to enforce their teachings; i. e., the healing of the sick by spiritual means.

Dean Hart should free himself once for all from the notion that the Christian Science treatment is an exhibition of "will-power." The Christian Science text-book, Science and Health, says categorically on this subject (page 144) : "Will-power is not Science. It belongs to the senses, and its use is to be condemned. Willing the sick to recover is not the metaphysical practice of Christian Science, but is sheer animal magnetism. Will-power may infringe the rights of man. It produces evil continually, and is not a factor in the Science of Being. Truth, and not corporeal will, is the divine power which says to disease, 'Peace, be still.'"

If it were true, as the dean states, that "world does not possess a scintilla of knowledge as to the moral character of God," then mankind would indeed in a deplorable and desperate predicament. Christian Scientists believe God to be Infinite Good, without variableness or shadow of turning, and they do not admit any possibility of evil of any kind in God or in God's creation. To speak of evil, therefore, is to touch upon a false concept, which will disappear when its falsity is recognized, just as any illusion ceases to seem real the moment it is understood as illusion. They know that God alone forgives sin, but they do not believe—and for this no logical person can blame them—that sin can be said to be forgiven while it continues. Therefore, one of the Christian Science tenets very properly states: "We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin, and in the understanding that evil and sin are unreal, hence not eternal" (Science and Health, p. 497).

Christian Scientists have no desire to criticise the beliefs of others, and they realize the great difficulty which every religious teacher must experience in conveying spiritual meanings through the use of language. Christian Science is in reality a religion of doing, and the proof that it is understood can only be furnished by those who can show signs similar to those of the early Christians.

W. D. McCRACKAN. In The New York Sun.

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Declaring the Truth

January 29, 1903

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