Article June 1, 1912 Issue

The second letter from "Contender for the Faith" divides...

William J. Bonnin

Southport (Eng.) Visiter

The second letter from "Contender for the Faith" divides itself into two parts. In the first place he objects to the Christian Science teaching that God neither authorizes nor permits evil; in the second he permits himself, on the authority of certain gentlemen, to make charges against Christian Science of a very uncomplimentary nature. To deal with these latter first, one of these "authorities" in his pamphlet quotes from a tract published in America some time ago to attack Christian Science, the author of which narrates that a certain Indian lady asked somebody one day what the Christian Science teaching was, and, as soon as she was told, recognized it as a pagan philosophy, etc., etc. The author of the tract was not, of course, concerned to find out what was told the lady or who told it her. It was enough that she said what she did for him to publish it. And it was enough that he should publish it for Mr.—to repeat it. And it has been enough that Mr.—should repeat it in his little tract for your correspondent to utter it again. Of course nothing but a complete travesty of Christian Science could have been presented to the lady. In no teaching could the central fundamental teaching of the pantheism of India be more directly controverted than it is in Christian Science. And so what the Indian lady said is of no interest beyond affording an excellent illustration of the nature of the evidence produced against Christian Science and the methods of those who deal in it. As to the other "authority," it would be impossible to read his production and (so violent is the prejudice and the language on every page) feel that a single word of it is reliable. I could indeed wish that your correspondent would seek enlightenment from some who could speak with authority—the authority of actual experience.

The teaching of Christian Science does not conflict in any way with your correspondent's contention that it is not contrary to God and His revealed truth that sickness and punishment should fall upon the disobedient. This is not, however, to say that God is the author of evil, or utilizes it or permits it in any way. God is unchanging good, the Principle of all true being. His law can operate only for good. In working out a mathematical problem, if we do not apply the proper rule, and arrive accordingly at a wrong result, at discord or disaster, can such disaster be laid to the charge of the basic law of mathematics? Assuredly not. And just as surely does Christian Science impart to the student an understanding of God and His law that discloses all evil to be but the expression of ignorance of, or the negation of, that law. But there can be no disobedience, in absolute truth, to the omnipotence of the divine law. And so, though sin and its concomitants, sickness and suffering, are very real things to us in our human experience and to our human consciousness, Christian Science shows that in the realm of the real, in the sight of God, they are without presence, power, or being. Christian Science reveals the message of Christianity to teach the possibility and duty of correcting that human consciousness with the understanding of God's allness, and with such correction of consciousness there is a corresponding correction of experience. Thus the Christian Scientist sees the healing works of Jesus not as transgressions of any law, but as the destruction of false laws, or a false human sense of law, but the knowledge of the eternal omnipotence of the law of God, good. This is the faith for which he contends, and which he has proved to be capable of being shown forth by its works.

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