Article September 2, 1916 Issue

In a sermon as reported in your department of religion...

Ezra W. Palmer—Denver, Col.

Rocky Mountain News

In a sermon as reported in your department of religion and social service, the clergyman in criticizing Christian Scientists said that "their denial of a personal God makes the term a mockery." Contrary to this clergyman's statement, Christian Science does not teach the denial of a personal God. Christian Scientists accept the Standard dictionary's definition of God as "the one Supreme Being, self-existent and eternal." But their God is not finite, nor is He fashioned as a physical personality. In Science and Health we read (p. 116), "If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite Person,—in the sense of infinite personality, but not in the lower sense."

Another writer objects because I used this expression in a previous article: "To the senses the son of the widow of Nain seemed to be dead, but Jesus knew otherwise." This critic carefully avoided my further reference to the raising of Lazarus from the dead when Jesus said, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." When Jesus raised the ruler's daughter from the dead he used a similar expression, "The maid is not dead, but sleepeth." Because Jesus said this, the narrator states, "they laughed him to scorn." Is it possible that this critic of Christian Science believes that the son of the widow of Nain was in a different state from Lazarus or the ruler's daughter? The Scriptures do not so state.

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