Article December 18, 1915 Issue

The implication that Christian Science teaches the ignoring...

John M. Tutt

Warrensburg (Mo.) Star-Journal

The implication that Christian Science teaches the ignoring of sin, and that this would mean the indulgence of it, must arise from grave misunderstanding of what Christian Science really does teach concerning sin. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 71) Mrs. Eddy says: "Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense." The mental nature of sin is further affirmed by Solomon, who said of a wicked man, "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." The moot question is not therefore as to the nature of sin, since it is plainly an erroneous state of mind and wholly bad. The gravest importance is attached to the question as to whether sin is to be recognized as a reality of creation, or to be attacked as delusive, a falsity not bearing God's sterling mark of genuineness.

Christian Science affirms the latter, but does not, however, deny the seeming reality of sin, nor its hideous nature as a part of human experience. Indeed, the broadest recognition and unveiling which sin has had since Jesus' scathing denunciations of it, has come from Christian Science. Through it the very fountain of sin has been uncovered, as springing from the human mind itself. The essence of sin is found in the activities of the carnal mind, which Paul defined as "enmity against God." The real man, then, is not represented by the fleshly mind, but misrepresented by it, for the man God made in His image and likeness is not at enmity with his creator. The old man of sin is put off, and the new or real man is put on, in the measure that sin is overcome.

To ignore sin would be as erroneous as sin itself, and would indeed tend to blunt the sense of sin. To fight sin on the ground of its destructibility is wisdom. Jesus declared the prayer of justification to be, "God be merciful to me a sinner," and this is the prayer of every true Christian Scientist, for to be convinced of sin is the first step toward reformation. The forgiveness of sin involves the destruction of it, and the remedy is always the Christ-spirit,—the understanding that sin is no part of real being, that God did not make it, indulge it, countenance it, or permit it. Because sin does not exist in the Mind which is God, it has no proper place or indulgence in His creation, man and the universe.

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