Article January 3, 1914 ISSUE

In a recent issue the Rev. M. S. Rees is quoted as warning...

George Shaw Cook—Jacksonville, Ill.

Daily Courier

In a recent issue the Rev. M. S. Rees is quoted as warning his hearers against Christian Science because it denies, first, the personality of God; second, that God made matter; third, the existence of sin.

In regard to the first of these objections, it should be explained that Mrs. Eddy says of God on page 336 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "God is individual and personal in a scientific sense, but not in any anthropomorphic sense." If person can be infinite, God is infinite Person. If person is conceived of as being less than infinite, all-inclusive, omnipotent, omniscient Spirit, then the term person does not adequately convey the true idea of God.

That God, who is infinite, eternal Spirit, could or be responsible for the existence of matter, which is the opposite of Spirit, Christian Science does most emphatically deny. If anything so entirely different from Spirit could exist, it must be outside of God, Spirit, and that is obviously impossible, for God, divine Mind, is all-presence, the one illimitable, indestructible substance. If God made matter, then matter must be like God, eternal. Paul said, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Then how shall man hope to free himself from matter and "inherit the kingdom of God" if indeed matter is created by God and is therefore eternal? Taking the statement of John that God made all that was made, and knowing that effect must be like cause, Christian Scientists believe that however real matter may seem to human sense, it can have no real existence, because it is not like God, Spirit, the only cause. Therefore they conclude that matter has only the appearance of substance or reality, for, as Mrs. Eddy says on page 468 of Science and Health, "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation." Physical scientists are today confirming the teaching of Christian Science in regard to the unreal nature of matter, and one of the most eminent of these is quoted as having recently described matter as "a suppositional vacuum in a hypothetical medium," and another some years ago said that modern science had not only explained matter, but had explained it away.

The third proposition, as to the existence of sin, must go down down with the downfall of matter, for belief in the reality of matter and that of sin are inseparable. Where one is found, the other is always present. If sin exists, it must be of God, for God is the only creator, who made all that exists and pronounced His creation good. But sin is not good, and therefore could not exist as part of the spiritual, eternal universe of God. This is precisely what Christian Science teaches regarding the nature of sin. Christian Science does not, however, ignore the claim of sin to existence, but teaches that it must be recognized as a false claim, to be repented of and forsaken before it can be demonstrated to be what it really is—nothing. This scientific forsaking of sin, and its forgiveness or destruction, comes through the apprehension of Christ, the true or spiritual idea of God, as being of "purer eyes than to behold evil."

Christian Science does not, as our critic seems to think, discard prayer and repudiate the atonement. It teaches its adherents to "pray without ceasing," and constantly to seek a higher and better understanding of the true nature of God and of man in His likeness. Furthermore, it requires the demonstration of this understanding in right thinking and right living. Such thinking inevitably results in the lessening of sin and disease. This is the practical atonement, or "exemplification of man's unity with God" (Science and Health, p. 18 ), and Christian Scientists believe that in no other way can they realize the full import of what has been mistakenly regarded as the vicarious atonement of Jesus the Christ. Only by following his example can we avail ourselves of the atonement of Christ Jesus, which was in fact the perfect demonstration of man's at-one-ment with God; and this rendering of the word atonement is not used by Mrs. Eddy alone, but is being given by modern scholars as the correct translation.

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