Article November 24, 1917 Issue

The critic's endeavor to find inconsistencies between...

B. W. Oppenheim—Bonners Ferry, Idaho

Kootenai Valley Times

The critic's endeavor to find inconsistencies between Mrs. Eddy's works and the Bible has to do with fundamental questions which at some time occur to every man. These questions relate to the nature of God, the nature of man and man's relation to God, the nature of the universe and man's place in it, the problem of evil in the world. On all of these questions Christian Science differs from the theological views entertained by our ministerial friend. It challenges the correctness of these theological views and invites a reexamination of the Scriptures in the light of a rational and spiritual interpretation thereof.

Mrs. Eddy has given an accurate and scholarly exposition of Genesis (see Science and Health, p. 501), pointing out the real difference between the two accounts of creation therein, the so-called Elohistic and Jehovistic. She has accepted the first or spiritual creation as true and the second or material creation as untrue, since being inconsistent, both cannot be true. She has shown that logically a God who is all-powerful, ever present, and good, can create nothing inconsistent with the attributes of goodness. The conception of a Deity who would or could bring evil and disaster upon His children, or who would cause or permit them to suffer, is out of harmony with the concept of a good God. The universe and all creation, including man, if created by God, must reflect the goodness and perfection of their creator.

That which in human experience belies the goodness and omnipotence of Deity, classed generally as evil and personified in the Bible as Satan, Mrs. Eddy has pointed out is not the creation of a good God, but a false concept which, when seen for what it is, is destroyed. It is proving this fact of the unreality of evil that brings about healing and regeneration. It is difficult for the human mind, steeped in what it is pleased to term the common sense experience of everyday life, to conceive of all creation as wholly spiritual, and particularly to conceive the idea of the unreality of evil. The doctrine of the unreality of evil does not mean that one can indulge in sin, for that would be a recognition of its reality. On the contrary, Christian Science teaches the necessity for constantly eliminating from thought and act every trace of sin. By explaining sin as not having the support of Deity, man is given hope, because he is no longer fighting the inevitable. He is required only to see God as perfect, and man, His image, as perfect. A perception of this truth transforms even human conditions to approximate the divine. This is not a religious, mental, moral, and physical hallucination, as the critic asserts. Abstract as it may sound, it is but the application of a simple truth about God and man; and what is more to the point, it brings results. As in Jesus' day, men are healed of their diseases by learning the good news about God.

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