Article October 30, 1915 Issue

Finite Intelligence

HON. CLARENCE A. BUSKIRK

Mrs. Eddy reminds us that "erring, finite, human mind has an absolute need of something beyond itself for its redemption and healing" (Science and Health, p. 151). With all its apparent activities the finite mind is nevertheless incapable of comprehending the marvelous processes of infinite intelligence. Some questions in the realm of religious investigation always remain unanswered. This does not mean that they are in themselves unanswerable, for agnosticism is but the inexcusable wail of intellectual indolence, and to surrender to perplexing difficulties in any republic of knowledge, religious or secular, is to yield to ignorance and inefficiency and to recruit the forces of superstition and folly. Thanks to Christian Science, the realm of the unknown and seemingly unknowable is ever becoming smaller and smaller.

Men are constantly finding themselves face to face with problems of existence whose origin is traceable to human ignorance. Many of these are complex, mutable, kaleidoscopic, and for their solution recourse must be had to some source of fundamental and unalterable truth which is always accessible. Such source must be both religious and scientific, to use the words in their common import. Using these terms according to their exact meanings, we should affirm that that which is religious is scientific and that which is scientific is religious.

On page 342of Science and Health we read: "If Christianity is not scientific, and Science is not of God, then there is no invariable law, and truth becomes an accident. Shall it be denied that a system which works according to the Scriptures has Scriptural authority?" To sanction the truth of Christianity is to justify, even to necessitate, the terms scientific Christianity and Christian Science, since that which is not scientific is not Christian. Infinite Truth embraces all truth, be it arbitrarily classified as scientific or religious or what you will. When for the sake of greater perspicacity we speak of a particular religious verity or of a particular pathway in scientific inquiry, we ought not to overlook the fact that we are speaking of partial presentments, or particular facets of truth, instead of separate things. We cannot know all there is to be known of anything real without knowing all there is to be known of everything. Every item of knowledge we gain helps toward the acquisition of other knowledge. For example, to become a better religionist is to become a better mathematician, a better astronomer, and so on.

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