Article May 22, 1909 Issue

When the Master of Christianity declared, "It is the...

Alfred Farlow

Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph

When the Master of Christianity declared, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing," he evidently meant that the only thing which gives life and existence to creation is Spirit, and that the flesh, which means the physical or material in contradistinction to the spiritual, is altogether unprofitable. Why unprofitable? What can be the constituency or nature of that which our Lord declared to be altogether unprofitable? Science teaches that the material is simply a material sense of the spiritual and real universe; that creation exists as it was primarily created, and has never lapsed into a material condition. Jesus said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," which implies that Spirit is not the author of matter, is not the author of the physical or material. The Scriptures declare that God saw all that He had made, "and, behold, it was very good," and that "without him was not any thing made that was made."

We have now established two premises from a Scriptural point of view: first, that God is Spirit, Mind, Truth, Love, good; second, that His creation is spiritual and not material. These are the premises in the Christian Science syllogism. We do not contend that they accord with material observation, nor do we contend that they are acceptable except to those who are willing to accord first place to the spiritual, and to accept the Scriptural teaching that the material is altogether unprofitable.

Our critic declares that "science tends to show that Spirit and matter are only different forms of the same thing; just as (for analogy) ice and water are different aspects." This amounts to a declaration that matter is Spirit in the process of cooling, or that Spirit is matter in the form of steam. Moreover, it is a pantheistic belief, since it implies that the creator and creation are identical. It contradicts the Scriptural teaching which draws a distinctive line between matter and Spirit. It also contradicts the teaching of "ordinary science," that the effect must be like its cause, all of which we conclude by the use of the "dictionary."

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