Article February 6, 1909 Issue

Christian Science is based on the self—evident proposition...

Capt. Geoffrey Wilkinson

Kentish (Deptford, Eng.) Mail

Christian Science is based on the self—evident proposition that there is one great First Cause, and that this First Cause is intelligence, or Mind—in other words, Spirit, God. Perfect Mind is expressed in perfect ideas, so that God's creation is spiritual, ideal, perfect in every detail. Matter, that which appears to the senses, is the negation of this, is in fact a false, imperfect sense of God's spiritual perfect creation—it is "the flesh" which "profiteth nothing," which God never made. Material objects are the counterfeits of spiritual ideas, and therefore, speaking absolutely, unreal, much as the distorted landscape seen through a bad pane of glass is unreal; material selfhood is a false, imperfect, mortal sense of man's true, spiritual, eternal individuality in the image and likeness of God, It is "The old man" which must be "put off," and as it is put off, as the false selfhood vanishes, "the new man" is "put on." man's true selfhood appears. Hence the absurdity of our critic's remark, "Sin meant nothing. when they could say, as Christian Science taught, 'I am no sinner. The idea that I am is illusion. I have only to believe in my own perfection.' " The fact is that sin means a great deal in Christian Science. It is the claim to reality of that which is unlike God, unlike good, and the sinner is admitting this claim, is making a reality of that which is unreal, and is therefore actively engaged in making his own hell, for as Mrs. Eddy has said, on page 537 of Science and Health, "error excludes itself from harmony."

The simple truth is that our critic has absolutely failed to grasp what is meant by the unreality of evil in Christian Science. It is not Christian Science to "tell a sufferer, 'You are not ill; you only imagine it. ' " If disease were real in an absolute sense, it would be true, part of eternal Truth, and it would be futile to attempt to destroy it. That disease, however, has a relative reality to the erring human consciousness it would be foolish to deny, and the Christian Scientist therefore proceeds to dispel this false sense of reality by bringing to the patient's consciousness the truth of being, by bringing to him that understanding of spiritual law, the law of God who is Love, which annuls the physical so-called law. And so it is with every problem of human existence, however seemingly important, however relatively insignificant. The Christian Scientist does not move in a sort of fools' paradise, thinking that the mere ignoring of evil in the proving of its unreality. He will prove its nothingness in the degree of his understanding of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, and he will understand this in proportion as he lets that Mind be in him "which was also in Christ Jesus." This is not the work of a moment, it calls for constant effort, and just in proportion as man gains that Mind will he gain dominion over all material conditions. In intimating that Christian Scientists should walk through brick walls or dispense with money,—by which he would seem to imply that they should dispense with food,—our critic forgets that Christ Jesus appeared through closed doors only a short time before his ascension above all material conditions. To do without food would be equivalent to overcoming death, and St. Paul said, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

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