Article January 23, 1904 Issue

Spirit and Matter Contrasted

FRANCES A. GESNER.

In the text-book of Christian Science we read, "The so-called pleasures and pains of matter perish; and they must go out under the blaze of Truth, spiritual sense, and the actuality of being. Mortal belief must, through Science or suffering, lose all satisfaction in error and sin, in order to part with them" (Science and Health, p. 296). The last clause of this paragraph may be said to present the point at issue between Christian Scientists and other Christians. The latter do not, because no human being can, deny the first clause; viz., The "pleasures and pains of matter perish;" but they do oppose the Scientist's statement that Truth is the destroyer; for all other religionists insist on the reality of material conditions, as being in themselves a phase or part of Truth's manifestation.

As the light of divine Science grows brighter and brighter, how paradoxical, unreasonable, and illogical appears such insistence, such a ground for opposition; what contradictions are involved therein, what admissions are thereby necessitated. If material conditions are real, they must be of God, if one acknowledges God. If they are of God, He must have a material element or essence in His nature or consciousness. Materiality is present only as material sense. How is it, then, that in all the material-sense records of all the ages no man has ever seen, or claimed to have seen, God? Why did Jesus say, "No man hath seen God at any time"? Why does Scripture say, "There shall no man see me and live"? Surely if God had any material consciousness, or essence, there would be a link of communication through our material consciousness. Paul writes, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Why not? No Christian takes issue with this declaration, but why not? If God creates materially, if flesh and blood are in His consciousness, how would it be possible that they should not be worthy to inherit His kingdom. Surely no Christian can believe that God either would or could create something of which He has no consciousness, or that is unworthy to appear in His presence. What an utter contradiction! An inventor, for instance, cannot possibly invent, or create anything of which he has no conception in his own mentality. One might as well say a machine or any invention could never when completed appear in the presence of its inventor, as to say flesh and blood cannot enter God's kingdom, if God conceived and created them. Can God forget, or rid Himself of His own nature or consciousness?

Again, do those who insist on the reality of material man as the creation of God ever consider what all this implies? To say nothing of the sins of material personality,—all the sufferings, pains, disease, deformities, unsupplied needs,—every possible phase of torture is consequent upon materiality. If God created man materially, what possible ground of assurance can there be that He may not continue man's material being? Does God change? If so, how should we be sure of this? If God created man materiality, and we are agonizing in material conditions, what assurance or even hope can we have in prayer to their author to be delivered therefrom? Again, if the most determined claimants for materiality are looking, and must look in view of death, to spiritual consciousness alone for an earnest of continued existence after death, what is the ground of their opposition to the claim of Christian Science that Spirit is the only real Life here and now as well as in the hereafter, and that according to the mentality will be the manifestation or form, which the "carnal mind," as Paul calls it, will reflect; and further that divine Mind—God—is reflected spiritually. Christ Jesus said "God is Spirit," and "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Can any Christian object to, or oppose this reasoning?

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