Article March 11, 1916 Issue

On page 550 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures"...

Robert S. Ross

Buffalo (N. Y.) Express

On page 550 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes: "Embryology supplies no instance of one species producing its opposite. A serpent never begets a bird, nor does a lion bring forth a lamb. Amalgamation is deemed monstrous and is seldom fruitful, but it is not so hideous and absurd as the supposition that Spirit—the pure and holy, the immutable and immortal—can originate the impure and mortal and dwell in it." Throughout the entire round of nature, like produces like. But behold the zeal of our critic, who, like many other critics of Christian Science, endeavors to attribute to Spirit, Mind, the only cause and creator, which we call God or Principle, His opposite, matter! If God is Spirit, His creation must be spiritual. If Spirit is the only creator, matter is not a creator. Therefore matter, including the so-called human body and all other material phenomena, has no foundation in fact, and in reality it does not exist.

Speaking of the unreality of material existence, Christ Jesus said: "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." This was the master Metaphysician's way of telling his followers that matter is a supposition, a falsehood, a lie, assuming the reality of substance only to the degree that a lie seems real.

Christian Science healing is brought about in proportion to one's understanding of the allness of Spirit, God, and the consequent nothingness of matter, evil. Christ Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." His understanding of the spiritual fact of being was so complete that in the event commonly referred to as the ascension he actually explained away his belief in material existence, and the physical Jesus became the spiritual Christ. Our critic is therefore quite right when he declares that Christian Science teaches the unreality of matter, which is the inevitable conclusion if God is All-in-all. Man, as God created him, is and always will be spiritual, harmonious, complete, in conscious possession of his oneness with God, not through the so-called human mind, but through the Mind of Christ.

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On page 550 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures"...

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