Article August 16, 1913 Issue

Starting from the premise that God is, and that He is...

John M. Dean

Memphis (Tenn.) Press

Starting from the premise that God is, and that He is Spirit, Mrs. Eddy was faced with the inevitable conclusion that God, Spirit, being everywhere, matter can exist nowhere except in a supposititious mortal consciousness, and that matter, with its attendant train of evils, is the result of ages and ages of wrong thinking about God and man and the universe. Thus Christian Science regards evil, sin, sickness, and dealth as false beliefs, as unreal because not God-made, as nonentities because destructible; in short, as lies counterfeiting the truth. This teaching certainly gives no power to evil, for to give power to that which has no real existence would be a manifest absurdity, and the only recognition given to it is the same kind of recognition that any wise man would give to a lie of whatever sort. An innocent man accused of stealing a horse would not be giving power or reality to the charge by denying its truth and declaring its falsity. Rather would he be adopting the only logical way to disprove the false claim by evidence to the contrary. If God is omnipotent, the only power, nothing is more certain than that there can be no other power, and that nothing exists beside His perfect creation, which He pronounced "very good." So it must be plain that Christian Science stands for the only monistic idea which is logical and tenable, and it plants itself squarely on the platform of that ancient lawgiver who boldly said, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord."

The "great First Cause" could not have created His opposite, for like must create like, and men cannot "gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles," nor will an acorn produce a pine tree. On page 119 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, "God is natural good," and "natural good" could not, if it would, and would not, if it could, produce an element of evil to wage eternal war against its own creation. In order to be understood in accordance with prevailing standards, Mrs. Eddy was compelled to use ordinary English in stating her deep metaphysical conclusions, and so she speaks of Mind and matter, good and evil, Truth and error, but always as giving sole power to Mind, and good, and Truth, with the inevitable recognition of matter, evil, sin, disease, and death as ghastly illusions without a single element of being, despite their self-assertiveness. In this way, and only in this way, is it possible to destroy their assumed power.

The so-called human mind knows nothing of reality, and only in the degree in which this "carnal mind" is supplanted by the divine Mind can mankind gradually gain increasing glimpse of the real and spiritual creation. Thus we know that the human mind can never "know the absolute," which is attainable only by those who have learned to let that Mind be in them "which was also in Christ Jesus." The one Mind is God, and surely in this Mind there can be no thought of dualism or divided power.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Starting from the premise that God is, and that He is...

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access