Article November 20, 1915 Issue

Omnipotent and Omnipresent

JOHN E. FELLERS

Among the things taught in Christian Science which have startled the thought of materialists, perhaps none has provoked more comment and opposition than that sin, disease, and death are unreal; yet it seems strange that this teaching is not readily accepted and acknowledged, when the meaning of the words "real" and "reality" is carefully considered. According to Christian Science a thing that is real is eternal, everlasting, unchangeable,—the same yesterday, today, and forever,—unyielding, unalterable, immovable. On page 275 of Science and Health we read: "To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is."

If we accept the belief that sin, disease, and death are real, thus acknowledging them as eternal, everlasting, unyielding, unchangeable, what becomes of the ministry and the ministrations of all the hospitals, sanitariums, asylums, churches, and physicians whose honest efforts and sacrifices we so much respect and honor? How are they singly or collectively to heal, or change, or ameliorate a condition that is real? The facts are that there is no hospital, sanitarium, asylum, church, physician, or minister in Christendom whose work is not a direct challenge to the claims of materiality that sin, disease, and death are real or have reality. Wherefore then the opposition to the teachings of Christian Science on this vital question, when the materialist in theory is teaching the same thing? In this age when consistency is of such great value, it seems strange that our materialist friends will continue to work in one direction and talk in the other, and expect to achieve the results for which sick and suffering humanity is watching, waiting, and praying.

We are taught in Christian Science that Life is the only reality, because Life is God. We have been taught by creeds and doctrines that sin and disease are real and result in the reality called death, from which there is no escape. Let us measure these opposite teachings. It is easy to see and realize that there is no life in death, for death, so called, is the absence of life. If there is no life in death, the final result or fruit of all suffering, and Life is the only reality, then there is no reality in death; and there being no reality in death, there cannot possibly be any reality in the myriad minor sufferings which claim to result in death. It is axiomatic that if the sum of all the parts does not contain a certain element, none of the parts contain that element. In like manner we are taught in Christian Science that Life as God is omnipotent, all-power; and since there is no life in death, and Life is the only power, then there cannot possibly be any power in death, nor in the innumerable beliefs which claim to result in death.

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