Article January 30, 1915 Issue

With regard to a critic's assertion that our Lord believed...

Charles W. J. Tennant—England

Herts Advertiser and St. Albans Times

With regard to a critic's assertion that our Lord believed in the evidence of the corporeal senses because he said, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see," this is certainly not borne out by Isaiah, who prophetically said that when the Saviour of the world should appear he would not judge after the seeing of the eyes nor after the hearing of the ears, but would judge righteous (correct) judgment. Jesus himself said, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment," and he fulfilled this saying at the death-beds of many. Had he believed the testimony of the corporeal senses, he would never have said, "Loose him, and let him go," at the tomb of Lazarus.

Our critic remarks: "I do not deny that Christian Science effects cures, and possibly remarkable ones, but I do deny that such cures are peculiar to this system, or that its absurdities are necessary for their production. Its cures clearly rest on the well-established principle of suggestion." Such a statement shows as great an ignorance of that which heals in Christian Science as of the methods of suggestion. Christian Science healing results from the prayer of spiritual understanding; whereas suggestion arises from the belief that one human mind can influence another for good or evil. The two systems are very clearly contrasted by Jesus in the twelfth chapter of Matthew. A man was brought to him "possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb," and Jesus healed him. But when the Pharisees heard of it, they said, "This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." These Pharisees, not comprehending that it was through spiritual understanding that Jesus cast out the error, accused him of doing it through Beelzebub. Jesus then went on to show how impossible it was for a mind possessed of the knowledge of both good and evil to overcome evil, and said, "But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." Does our critic imagine that the kingdom of God has ever been brought into being by a suggestion of the human mind? St. James tells us that "the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." This is the prayer of Christian Science, and it demonstrates the saying of our Master, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Christian Science teaches emphatically that the Christ is the Son of God, and this includes his divinity. Jesus never called himself God, but he did say, "I and my Father are one," and "My Father is greater that I." This is quite comprehensible in Christian Science, in which God is divine Mind and the Christ the image and likeness of God, the divine idea. Jesus, referring to his spiritual selfhood, said he was "the way, the truth, and the life;" also, "Before Abraham was I am."

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