Article December 16, 1911 Issue

To publish the disconnected statement that "man is incapable...

Olcott Haskell

Healdsburg (Cal.) Enterprise

To publish the disconnected statement that "man is incapable of sin," is to invite misunderstanding and confusion. Mrs. Eddy does not so present Christian Science. In the chapter Recapitulation, which begins on page 465 of Science and Health, is this quotation from Genesis: "And God said: 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'" This is followed by the statement: "Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God's man. Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals" (p. 475).

Here the context shows plainly the distinction drawn between perfect man in the image and likeness of God, and sinning mortal man. St. Paul makes a similar distinction where he writes of the outward man perishing, but of the inward man as being "renewed day by day," and says, "The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

In the first epistle of John, from which our critic quotes, this same truth is expressed in the words: "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." In her writings, Mrs. Eddy uses Soul as a synonym for Spirit, God; but at the same time explains (Science and Health, p. 481): "When reading the Scriptures, the substitution of the word sense for soul gives the exact meaning in a majority of cases." A careful reading of the Scriptural context in passages where this word occurs will show that soul is sometimes used to indicate sinful "sense" and at other times spiritual "sense." This is clearly illustrated in the following passages:

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