Article November 11, 1911 Issue

A recent writer in the Clarion asks on what Christian Science...

Frederick Dixon—London, England.

Clarion

A recent writer in the Clarion asks on what Christian Science "depends for its potency" if not "upon things material, nor supernatural, nor upon faith." Now, at the outset, I do not know what this critic means by faith, and it would take considerable space to disentangle the various concomitants of the word. If he means what Philo meant, and Philo, be it said, was a Jew and a contemporary of Jesus and the apostles, that it was perception of spiritual spiritual causation, then Christian Science depends on faith; but if he means by faith what St. Gregory meant when he said that there was no faith in accepting something of which your reason gave you assurance, and this is the common interpretation of the word, then Christian Science does not depend on faith. The one is the scientific faith of a thinker based on his growing understanding of spiritual law: he has faith, that because he has overcome a headache by a slight perception of spiritual law, he will gradually acquire the full knowledge of the truth which is to make the world free. The other is the blind faith of the man who accepts, through an appeal to his emotions, the most dogmatic and unconvincing assertions. The one appeals to reason, which Mrs. Eddy describes on page 327 of Science and Health as "the most active human faculty." The other ultimates inevitably in intolerance and persecution.

Next, Christian Science does not rely on things material, because it regards matter from the same standpoint as the idealistic school of natural scientists—that is to say, either as the subjective condition of the human mind, or as the product of energy. In either event it is a mere phenomenon, and phenomena can only be affected through the causes producing them. At this point, however, Christian Science separates itself entirely from the teaching of natural science. It insists that neither the human mind nor energy is the real cause of anything that exists, but that the sole cause of all real phenomena is divine Principle, and that as this Principle is spiritual, the only true phenomena are spiritual. The human mind or energy is then but a counterfeit or negation of the true Principle, which is divine Mind, just as material phenomena are, in turn, nothing but the counterfeits or negations of the real phenomena which are spiritual and not material.

It is at this juncture, I think, that the confusion arises in the critic's mind as to the meaning of the word "supernatural." The natural scientist confines science to the explanation of secondary causes or physical facts, and puts aside primary causes or spiritual facts as beyond the ken of men in this world. The Christian Scientist disputes this contention, which to him is a mere begging of the question. He insists that spiritual knowledge is much more scientific than material knowledge, inasmuch as it is based on the primary or absolute instead of on the secondary or relative. This, he explains, is the meaning of the phrase in the New Testament translated knowledge of God, but which should, of course, be translated full or exact knowledge of God, and so of Truth. And finally he declares that this knowledge was demonstrated by Jesus through the miracles, which were nothing but the object-lessons in support of his teaching, and that it can be again so demonstrated today.

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