Article July 26, 1913 Issue

"Truthseeker" asks in the American for the Christian Science...

W. C. Williams

Baltimore (Md.) American

"Truthseeker" asks in the American for the Christian Science view the recent wind and flood horrors of the West. In the nineteenth chapter of I Kings the Scriptures state that "the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice." Christian Science holds with the Bible that God is of too pure eyes to behold evil, and also with the statement that He declared His creation "very good." Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health, p.119, states: "In one sense God is identical with nature, but this nature is spiritual and is not expressed in matter. ... God is natural good, and is represented only by the idea of goodness; while evil should be regarded as unnatural, because it is opposed to the nature of Spirit, God."

When the fearful disciples awakened Jesus during the storm that nearly swamped the ship, his command, "Peace, be still," silenced the wind and quieted the waves. If the tempest was evoked by God, Jesus would not have rebuked it. He stated plainly that he came to fulfil the law, not to destroy it, and if the conflict of the elements was according to a law of God, he would have abided by the law. But as he knew that a loving Father did not invent disaster any more than He invented disease, he taught that man could, with God's help, overcome sin, and all else that was antagonistic the God, to Love; he taught that the creator was no more in the tempest than in disease, and that He did not afflict His children with either. Christian Science teaches that the universe which God created is spiritual, and that harmony will not reign, in the individual or in the general human experience, until the conception of a power in materiality is overcome.

In Christian Science, error and evil have no power except that which has been brought about through fear and false belief, else God, good, is not omnipotent, all power. An understanding of God and total reliance on Him would dispel fear and eliminate the results. As we have for centuries been industriously growing away from God, this consummation seems difficult of accomplishment; but if we turn again toward the realization of Truth, we shall eventually be able to assert our full, divinely given dominion.

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