Our critic, after accepting without reservation all that a...

John D. Sherwood

Tyler (Texas) Courier-Times

Our critic, after accepting without reservation all that a lecturer on Christian Science had said when defining God and God's attributes, demurs to the lecturer's statement that the records of creation given in the first and second chapters of Genesis are contradictions. Our critic contends that "the first chapter relates the fact of man's creation, the second tells how and of what he was created." Now let us examine the Scriptures, where we find in the first chapter of Genesis the record of the Elohistic creation, where God spake and it was so. Here it is recorded that divine Mind made all things spiritually; that God saw all that He had made, and pronounced His works "very good." Here it is recorded that God made man in His own image and likeness—in the image and likeness of infinite Spirit—and gave man dominion over the work of His hands.

In the second chapter of Genesis we find an account of the Jehovistic record of creation, where "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." No mention is here made which intimates that this creation was good; no record is made that the man of dust was given dominion. The second chapter does not contain the record of the spiritual creation; but rather does it give the record of a dream allegory,—the Adam-dream,—where everything seems to be upside down. Isaiah alludes to Adam in the admonition given by him, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" God is Spirit, and man in God's image is spiritual; but Adam was formed "of the dust of the ground," hence he was not the man whom God had made in His own image and likeness. St. Paul said, "Let God be true, but every man a liar."

Our critic says of the lecturer, "Then he told us that matter has no real existence." The lecturer had quoted a recognized authority who had denominated matter "a suppositional vacuum in a hypothetical medium," and had repeated the words of Mr. Balfour, former prime minister of Great Britain, who has said, "The material sciences are now explaining matter by explaining it away." God made all that was made; and since God, Spirit, is infinite, there is naught else beside Him; hence that which is called matter is not substance. It is but the phenomenon of mortal mind, — the suppositional opposite of infinite Spirit,—and there can be no reality in it, since to make a place for matter would necessitate displacing Spirit; but that is not possible, because infinite Spirit is omnipresence, and there is no room for matter outside of inexhaustible Spirit.

Our critic contends for the reality and existence of pain, sickness, and death. If this trio exist in reality, who made them? and if mortals believe that God made sin, sickness, and death, why did His Son come to destroy them? But St. John tells us, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." "The works of the devil" are not a part of the spiritual creation of the infinitely good God, who made all, and who pronounced "very good" all that He had made; hence the only conclusion left is that sin, sickness, and death are the errors of belief that have to be seen as errors and be overcome by an understanding of the truth. Christ Jesus said, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

A Christian Scientist does not believe that heaven is a material place. Christ Jesus continually rebuked that erroneous belief. He said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you;" and on page 590 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy defines the kingdom of heaven as, "The reign of harmony in divine Science; the realm of unerring, eternal, and omnipotent Mind; the atmosphere of Spirit, where Soul is supreme."

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