Article April 10, 1909 Issue

"Christian philosophy" can be only the teaching of...

Frederic C. Hotchkiss

Danbury (Conn.) News

"Christian philosophy" can be only the teaching of Jesus, and surely "traditional Christianity," if it follows that philosophy, should be able to heal the sick and do the works of the Master as did the early Christians prior to the advent of scholastic theology. If "traditional Christianity" stands merely for scholastic theology from the early fathers through Calvin to the present time, Christian Science claims little part in it. If, on the contrary, it stands for Jesus' teachings and the doing of his works, Christian Science may be called not only Christian, but scientific. Jesus' work was scientific because he worked by Principle—never by chance—and gained fixed results according to law. Christian Science is today bringing forth the same fruits by the use of the same Principle. It claims therefore its right to its name, Christian Science.

The critic says Christian Science deals in "negations;" that it denies "matter, man, sin, and death." Christian Science, as does all Christianity, starts with the affirmation that God is Spirit, good, omnipotent, and the only creator. Its "negations" consist in its denials of everything that claims an existence contrary to this affirmation. God, Spirit, being the only creator, and cause being necessarily manifested in its effect, God could not create matter; nor could God, good, create evil. If God is omnipotent and the only creator, no other power can create matter or evil. Hence Christian Science, along with the most advanced thinkers in the world of physics, denies the substantiality of matter; and with Jesus, who called the devil—evil—only "a liar," it denies the truth of evil. Christian Science is bold enough and logical enough to accept the conclusions from its premise of an omnipotent God who is Spirit, good, and it undertakes to prove the truth of the fact that it accepts. Christian Science does not deny man, as our critic asserts, but it does not start with evil to find him. It bases its statement of God and of man in His image on Genesis i.-ii. 4, and it finds this statement in accord with Jesus' teachings. It denies the possibility of any human theology making man less than God's image.

Christian Science denies death as good, because it accepts Paul's statement, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death;" in short. Christian Science is so sure of the existence of an omnipotent God who is good, that it denies whatever seems to contradict this fact, and is slowly working out its proof, step by step, that the omnipotence of Truth can destroy error, all evil, until man comes finally to "the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man. unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

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