Article August 27, 1910 Issue

It is hard for any Christian Scientist to understand how...

H. Coulson Fairchild

Plainfield (N.J.) Press

It is hard for any Christian Scientist to understand how a Christian minister can so far forget himself as to declare any doctrine antichristian which heals the sick by spiritual means alone and has for its foundation the science and proof of the religion of Jesus Christ. Our clerical critic is quoted as saying, "I oppose Christian Science because it denies some of the fundamental truths of the Bible. It denies the reality of matter, the personality of God, the personality of Jesus Christ, the very plan of salvation, the reality of sin, and the reality of prayer." I reply that in denying the reality of matter, Christian Science exalts the supremacy and reality of Spirit; since Spirit and matter are necessarily opposites, we believe that the denial of matter is more Christianly consistent than to admit that God, divine Love, is the author of matter, and hence of all human discord. To Spirit there can be no matter, and the kingdom of God for the Christian here and now begins with this Biblical promise, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing [is of no profit to man]."

Regarding the personality of God, if our critic means this in the sense of infinite personality, I answer that Christian Science endorses the thought of God as infinite personality. If our critic means that God is a person after the manner of an enlarged human personality, Christian Science cannot endorse such a view. In the Congressional Library at Washington, a number of reproductions from famous Italian painters may be seen. One pictures God as an old man with a flowing robe, passing through space and having around Him a few human personalities which He is supposed to have created. He is represented in the act of placing Adam upon this sphere. Surely our critic cannot have this kind of a God in mind when he speaks of the personality of God. Surely he is not unmindful that in the Westminster Confession of Faith, God is indicated as a being "without body, parts, or passions," supreme, a most pure spirit, etc. A finite and physical conception of God is detrimental to human progress, and Christian Science repudiates such a view.

Replying to the assertion that Christian Science denies prayer, be it known that prayer in Christian Science is not a petition to "a God afar off," but is the realization that God is "at hand," "a very present help in trouble." In the words of a well-known hymn,—

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