Editorial March 30, 1912 Issue

THE SIMPLICITY OF SCIENCE

John B. Willis

One not infrequently meets with those who say that they would really like to understand Christian Science, but have found it quite beyond them, and who thus explain their indifference to it, though they acknowledge their need of help. When this state of mind is analyzed, one is sure to come upon an abnormal sense of self-depreciation, a love of the material life which is inherently opposed to the spiritual demands of Science, or else an unfamiliarity with religious questions which, when found in professed Christians, offers a sad commentary upon the failure of their past religious teaching to awaken and stimulate vital individual thought respecting the deeper issues of life.

In considering this subject, it is well to remind ourselves that since all truth expresses the rule of unvarying law, the logical relation of cause and effect, it is apprehensible to intelligence; nevertheless, only that truth which is clearly understood can seem simple. Moreover, the comprehension of spiritual truths calls not only for their exact statement, but for that alert open-mindedness, that honest application of thought to which the many are not accustomed. Christian Science recognizes that Truth is infinite, and hence that its totality is beyond human embrace. Jesus taught, however, that if we have the spirit of a little child, we may savingly know that which we cannot fully explain; and it is therefore probable that in the instance of any sincere truth-seeker confusion has resulted not because of incapacity to grasp the truth, but because of a possibly unconscious prejudice which will not hear, or hearing will not understand. It may also result from the effort to make error true. When we try to coordinate opposites, such as light and darkness, truth and error, we enter upon a hopeless undertaking.

The simplicity of Christian Science teaching inheres first of all in the fact that it follows the Master's order of thought. beginning with God, whose spiritual nature and perfection none can question, it neither declares nor consents to any statement of belief which is not in harmony therewith. The "leading tone" of the Old Testament is this, "The Lord he is God; and there is none else beside him." To this sublime truth Christ Jesus was ever referring, and this may be said to be the single theme of Christian Science. The declaration made by Mrs. Eddy, that "perfect God and perfect man" is "the basis of thought and demonstration" (Science and Health, p. 259), leaves nothing more to be said. The perfect realization of infinite being calls for an eternity of spiritual growth, but the simplest wayfarer cannot fail to see that the teaching of Christian Science is the logical and necessary outcome of the perfection of the divine nature. There is much in the opening of the tiniest flower that is beyond our present comprehension, and yet how sure we are of the fact of its bloom, and how perfectly simple it seems.

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