Article October 4, 1913 Issue

One reason advanced by our critic why he could "not be...

John H. Wheeler

Kansas City (Mo.) Journal

One reason advanced by our critic why he could "not be a Christian Scientist" was that it would require of him to become "intellectually dishonest," a most startling implication of this Christian faith which, if provable, would disrupt its claim to teach Christianity. During Paul's ministry he once said, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," which mental attainment, he deeply felt, would be the greatest blessing a mortal could possibly experience, even that spiritual uplift which would in due time immortalize him. Hence, the goal of all Christian faith is to lead mortals to become immortals. None question our Saviour's being intellectually honest, or of not being spiritually consistent with God's law and order. His mental poise was always scientifically correct and concurrently accurate in purpose and result. In other words, Christ Jesus was, mentally and physically, the best balanced of all who dwelt on earth; consequently Christianity's whole text and purpose should teach that our redemption is only possible in being, even as our Saviour was, superior to sin and its results, namely, sickness and death. Paul's views were in perfect accord with those of Jesus, who said, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do." This profound declaration is an example of self-abnegation and absolute human obedience to spiritual law; a sweeping testimony from our Master that there is properly but one supreme Mind in the universe, who is the only guiding intelligence for all men, which fact wholly discredits the human mind's assumptions.

Christ Jesus was a profound thinker, whose sole purpose was to inspire mankind to adopt God's law wholly into their earthly experience in order to realize the omnipotence of Truth in human life. Truth is one of the terms used by our Saviour to designate God's character and being, as he said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." This freedom, then, is the possible possession or knowledge of man's true selfhood, a spiritual reality, which would preclude one's being deceived by an erroneous pretense to this reality, namely, being a carnally-minded, helpless victim of ignorant and wilful sin. So while Jesus healed the multitudes of their sinful, fearful, and imperfect human sense of life, he did it through his exalted spiritual knowledge of man's actual life being immortal and not carnal, as it seems to be, thus lifting them heavenward. The physical results were, with the sinner, a repentance, and with the sick, a restoration to health. Our Saviour was the only one who followed the teachings of the holy Word without mistake or counter human opinions. The multitudes saw God acknowledged by him in example and precept, as Jesus once prayerfully said, "He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him," which illustrated his secret of being sinless; and the four gospels are a brief exposition of his wonderful ministry of word and act in its effect upon mortals, which was calculated by him to be a sufficient guide for all to reach the plane of his mental and spiritual poise, which attainment would expel from their thoughts all sin as worthless, even in human life.

So our critic's statement concerning Christian Science is true: "Christian Science was born to emphasize a great spiritual truth that the Christian world seemed to forget, namely, the superiority of the spiritual life," but his surmise that in years to come it will change its doctrine will never be realized, for Christian now faultlessly teaches mortals how to know the absolute nature of God through the daily spiritualization of their own human consciousness to conform more and more to God's law and order of life, as the psalmist sang, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." This is the relative requirement of mortals who seek to approach God in the absolute nature of His being. We cannot change God, nor His spoken word, but we can gradually change our human opinions and conceptions of Him to conform to His divine perfection, and in so doing abide in His eternal infinite nature and spiritual law. Christian Science is wholly concerned in bringing about this change in every experience of human life through the adoption of the example and teaching of Jesus Christ and its application to this life. When this teaching is understood better, the minor objection concerning its treatment of matter and the use of drugs will vanish, for these statements of truth are needed to spiritualize mortal existence, that its every thought and activity may thereby "put off the old man with his deeds," and "put on the new man," "till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

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