Article May 14, 1910 Issue

The principal accusation which our critic brings against...

Alfred Farlow

Fort Worth (Tex.) Record

The principal accusation which our critic brings against Christian Science is that it teaches the unreality of matter. He interprets the teaching of Christian Science on this subject as meaning that the entire universe is an illusion, and in this connection quotes the Scriptural passage: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," as an evidence that the Scriptures contradict the teaching of Christian Science. The gentleman is incorrect in his interpretation of the teaching of Christian Science, both in his premise and in his conclusion. If he had read the Christian Science text-book understandingly, he would have learned that it is the universe witnessed to by the material senses which is declared to be unreal, an illusion. Christian Science teaches that God created the heavens and the earth and that it was so from the beginning, but the heavens and the earth of God's creating were Godlike, spiritual, "after his kind," pure, perfect, unchanging, and eternal as God Himself. The gentleman makes the word "matter" synonymous with the term "heavens and earth," but this use of the term is not justified in view of the context describing man as made in God's "own image." The image of God is not matter, since God is Spirit. Christian Scientists agree that God created "the heavens and the earth," but they would disagree with our critic as to the nature of the heavens and earth which God created, and this disagreement of their view with his has immediately to do with their ability to heal the sick.

To say that the teaching "there is no matter" is equivalent to the declaration that "there is no universe, no mathematics, no science," as affirmed by our critic, is equivalent to saying there is nothing outside of matter, nothing to know outside of the material, and that matter is the basis of all science. That there is something to know about God and His "express image" is indicated by the Master's statement. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Our Lord plainly declared that the instability of mortal existence is to be done away and substantial being established by gaining a true knowledge in contradistinction to a false belief about God and His Christ. If we are to be better than we now are, and thus attain to spiritual manhood, there is something to know about such manhood. This something is none the less true because it consists of spiritual understanding in contradistinction to material belief, and it is justly entitled to the name "Science," the demonstrable knowledge of spiritual truth. There is no authority for restricting the use of the term science to material things. Christian Science is the Science of the Christ-teaching; hence the propriety of the name.

It is not God's creation—not the real universe—which Christian Science repudiates, but the false material concept thereof. Christian Science teaches that everything in creation, from the least to the greatest, is real, but that it is not what it seems to be to the uneducated human mind, to that quality of understanding which interprets all things materially and does not consider them from the spiritual or God view-point. Paul said, "For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious."

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The principal accusation which our critic brings against...

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