PROGRESS, NOT REGRESS

HON. CLARENCE A. BUSKIRK.

Certain metaphysical thinkers are employing the phrase, "the eternal regress," to designate the supposed futility of pursuing a class of metaphysical questionings. The thinker who tries to solve certain primary problems, for example, the origin of sin, the origin of falsehood, the origin of what Paul calls the carnal mind, the origin of what Mrs. Eddy calls mortal mind, is told that such questions involve a process which always merely regresses but never gets forward. One metaphysician likens this to the futile efforts of an animal trying to jump out of too deep a hole, and always falling back to the place from which it seeks to escape.

However welcome such a summary disposal of difficult problems may be to those who think they have neither the time nor the patience to linger upon them, it may be useful to consider, nevertheless, whether it does not involve an unsuspected species of agnosticism. And it ought never to be forgotten that agnosticism has its origin and its end in mental discouragement. Besides, agnosticism is essentially illogical; for it involves the contradiction that in affirming that certain things are unknowable, it thereby affirms that they are knowable in at least one respect, namely, their unknowableness. If there is one thing, however, upon which more emphasis is laid in the Bible than any other, it is the fact that God may be known and His law demonstrated.

We have the right certainly to declare that we do not know, or may even venture to declare that no one now pretends to know, the answers to some questions; but all this is quite far from justifying the assertion that at some future time no others can know such answers. It is the indefensible "begging the question" which is so frequently encountered; as, for example, in the classification of certain physical sicknesses as "incurable." Materialistic physicians have the plain right to say that according to their discouraging experiences there seem to be certain incurable diseases, but this does not excuse their pronouncement that these diseases can never be cured by some method distinct from their own, especially since we have the unequivocal statement that Christ Jesus healed "all manner of sickness and all manner of disease" and even overcame death.

The truth is all that is knowable. The truth is the only thing that is not unknowable. The truth is manifesting its activities constantly, everywhere and in everything; it never shows any disguise or guile, but works in the open. If we fail to understand, the fault is with us. The origin and nature of sin has been regarded by metaphysicians as one of their most unknowable problems. They have never been able, nor have any others been able, to reconcile the existence of sin with the existence of God. When sin is understood, as Christian Science teaches, to be neither truth nor reality nor affirmative fact, the irreconcilable conflict in human thought between God's existence and sin's existence begins to disappear. Many of us have rested at this point. We have tried to be content with the thought that the explanation of sin as an illusory phenomenon settles the question, yet it is useful to meditate upon all that relates to the truth of man's being, and to seek to be able to distinguish between falsehood and truth.

The notion conveyed by the phrase "the eternal regress," however specious or alluring, ought not to be harbored. If we fail to find satisfying answers to some of our questionings, let us hold such questionings in patient abeyance, instead of impatiently declaring that their answers are unknowable.

We all recall the familiar childhood myth of the crock of gold that awaited the one who could find the precise spot on which the end of the rainbow rested, and there have doubtless been many who entered upon the quest of its discovery, persisting despite repeated disappointments. One things, however, was an assured fact to the uplifted gaze of youth, namely, the promise of eternal hope, hence eternal progress, which was symbolized by "the bow in the cloud" that ofttimes spans the deluge of doubt and fear. In Christian Science we have not alone the hope which denies the possibility of regress, but the truth which declares for eternal progress, rising as it does above the floods of mere belief, and resting upon the mountain-top of scientific demonstration.

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THE WORKS OF GOD MADE MANIFEST

June 10, 1911

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