Editorial June 20, 1908 Issue

STRENGTH FOR WEAKNESS

John B. Willis

The student of St. Paul's writings cannot fail to note his apparent partiality for the paradox, so frequently does he express himself in what seem to be flagrant contradictions. When we hear him say, "I die daily." "I live, and yet not I," etc., it becomes manifest that he is willing to hazard an appearance of inconsistency of speech, if he may thereby startle and stimulate thought, awaken men from the stupor of ignorance or the contentment of long accepted belief.

This habit of the great apostle finds further illustration in his second letter to the Corinthians, where he writes, "When I am weak, then am I strong." The very foolishness of this statement, when taken literally, at once leads one to question, "What does he mean?" and it is possible that he used this form of address for the definite purpose, in part, of thus precipitating curiosity and leading the inquiringly thoughtful to a clear perception of the deeper significance of his words. As one thinks of the matter he realizes that the same I could not be both weak and strong at the same time. Paul was speaking humanly. His "weak". I is not identical with his "strong" I. He is recognizing the human sense of personality for what it seems: he is discriminating between sense selfhood and spiritual selfhood, and in all this he is both sensible and scientific.

Christian Science lays great emphasis upon the discrimination thus made. It regards it as essential to all right thought of self, and to spiritual advance, and the importance of the matter is seen the moment we awaken to the confusion and defeat which in all Christian history has attended the belief that man is a compound of weakness and strength, good and evil. Dominated by this false sense, unnumbered Christian people are to-day devoting themselves to the pitifully hopeless task of trying to reform an assertedly good-bad man, but in the light of Christian Science it is manifest that the asserted and assertive I of material sense, the I which is given to stumbling and to sin, and which is thereby subject to disease and death. is not only inherently "weak." but it is incapable of being made "strong." It has no "germ of good," is essentially "carnal," as Paul further names it, and therefore irredeemable. It never can be "saved." The apostle's paradox thus becomes intelligible, his meaning clear. "What I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.... Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." To the same purpose Mrs. Eddy writes: "Mortal existence is a state of self-deception and not the truth of being." "We must put to silence this lie... with the truth of spiritual sense." "The understanding of his spiritual individuality makes man more real, more formidable in truth, and enables him to conquer sin, disease, and death" (Science and Health, pp. 403, 318, 317).

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