Article June 3, 1911 Issue

The writer of the article on Christian Science, in a recent...

Frederick Dixon—Cairo.

Egyptian Observer

The writer of the article on Christian Science, in a recent issue, has embarked on a criticism of Christian Science teaching which is dependent entirely on an understanding of the meaning to be applied to the word faith. Huxley once declared that it was probably impossible to agree to an acceptable definition of the word religion, on the ground that no two people hardly would agree to each other's definitions. It is not too much to say that the word faith is almost as elusive, when it comes to a definition, as the word religion. To one man faith means believing something of which there is no proof, while to another, faith is based on at least some degree of evidence. Among the former may be classed St. Gregory, with his famous declaration that there is no faith in accepting a conclusion of which satisfactory evidence has been given; among the latter, St. Paul, with his even more famous declaration that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

It is, however, this very absence of any scientific terminology that has made religion such a hopeless battleground of sects. Yet, religion, if it is anything at all, it the expression of man's belief in the absolute, and so religious controversy should be as capable of being conducted on scientific lines as any controversy over the deductions of natural science. It was this very point which was so evident to Mrs. Eddy, and it led to her use of the term, Christian Science, a term which can be easily justified out of the pages of the New Testament, since in those pages we have the phrase translated "knowledge of God" which should admittedly be translated "full, exact, or scientific knowledge" of God, and so of Truth.

The question, therefore, naturally arises as to whether the word faith has not a definite meaning in the Bible. It becomes important, consequently, to learn exactly what significance the word, as used by Jesus, would have had to the crowds to whom he preached, and it so happens that we have in the writings of Philo, himself a Jew of the first century, and a contemporary of Jesus, some means of forming an opinion. One of the ablest of modern commentators on the Johannine writings has pointed out the inadequacy of the Greek language to convey the moral significance of the Hebrew verb to trust, using as an example the well-known passage in Isaiah, "If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established," which more literally means, "If ye be not firm, ye shall not be made firm."

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