Article April 15, 1911 Issue

The critic takes exception to the Christian Science teaching...

Frederick Dixon

London Sunday Times

The critic takes exception to the Christian Science teaching on the subject of atonement, which he says is contrary to the teaching of the Bible and of orthodox theology. If he would tell me what the teaching of orthodox theology on the subject of the atonement is, I should be much obliged, only I am afraid that when he had told me it would only be his view. A little time ago the Rev. J. Hugh Beibitz, vice-principal of the Theological College at Lichfield, expressed his opinion that the world would not accept any doctrine of the atonement which contradicted its fundamental moral instincts, and that these moral instincts were outraged by the teaching that God could be "appeased or propitiated by the death of an innocent victim." "Our whole mind," he said, "revolts against the Miltonic view of the atonement," which, besides offending our moral sense, "logically and rapidly leads us to undiluted Arianism." It is to be distinctly feared that the vice-principal of the Theological College at Lichfield would regard the critic's theory as rank Arianism. Mr. Beibitz, however, goes farther than this; he goes on to give four modern views of the atonement, as a prelude to enunciating a fifth of his own. In these circumstances, I think I am justified in asking, Quis custodiet ipse custodes of orthodoxy.

The critic is very wise in admitting that I am probably right in breaking up atonement in at-one-ment. There is not a shadow of doubt but that I am right, and if he is in search of an orthodox authority on the subject, he will find one in so well-known a writer as the Rev. W. L. Walker, for Mr. Walker is of opinion that, in order to understand the atonement, we have got to get rid of the modern meaning of the word; "and yet," as has been said, "Mr. Walker is experimentally evangelical and a scholar." What Mr. Walker wants to know is how the word atonement has ever come to signify expiation. He thinks it is partly through the influence of Anselm and partly from a misunderstanding of the meaning of sacrifice in the Old Testament. He says that it is the mistranslation of the Hebres word kipper which has led fundamentally to the whole misconception. kipper means simply cover, and the idea of expiation, he says, has been imported without any justification whatever. The impossibility of the word atonement meaning expiation he declares is evident from the fact that atonement is always represented as proceeding from God. "All this," says a writer in the Expository Times, "is self-evident to some. It has yet to be made self-evident to the multitude." I do not know if the critic will mind being included in the multitude, but he must remember that it was an entirely orthodox publication which adopted the word to cover him and not a Christian Scientist.

It should be clear that Christian Science in no way does away with the sacrifice of the Saviour. "That he might liberally pour his dear-bought treasures into empty or sin filled human storehouses," Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 54 of Science and Health, "was the inspiration of Jesus' intense human sacrifice. In witness of his divine commission he presented the proof that Life, Truth, and Love heal the sick and the sinning and triumph over death through Mind, not matter." Christian Science does not teach that God demanded the suffering and death of Jesus in expiation of the sins of the world; it teaches that Jesus overcame suffering and death in demonstration, to the world, of their impotency, and of the power of the Christ to heal and save the world. This power, he persistently declared, was available by all who believed on him, for he declared, "Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

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