Article February 3, 1917 Issue

Fair-minded persons will see upon a moment's reflection...

S. T. Downs

The Plymouth (Ind.) Democrat

Fair-minded persons will see upon a moment's reflection that disconnected sentences from Science and Health, separated from their context and presented in a setting of an antagonist's own language, do not form an argument. The statement "Christian Science is not Christian, and to adopt it is to commit intellectual and moral suicide," is not only incapable of proof, but there are many of your readers, no doubt, who know it to be positively absurd. Many who have observed Christian Science and Christian Scientists, even though they disagree with Mrs. Eddy's teachings, acknowledge that Christian Science has proved to be a mental and spiritual uplift to the rank and file of its followers, and that the intellectual and moral standards of Christian Scientists will not suffer by comparison with those of any other Christian denomination or religion.

If some branch of material means for treating disease should attack Christian Science for denying the reality of matter, it would not excite much wonder; but when a Christian minister declares that "the Bible is based on the philosophy of the reality of the material world," as does our brother, it is enough to tax one's credulity. Christian Science is based directly on the teachings of Christ Jesus, and he taught, as we read in the fourth chapter of John's gospel, that "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Now, in the first chapter of Genesis we learn that man was created in the image and likeness of God, and if what the Master taught about God as Spirit is true, as it certainly is, man as created by God must be spiritual. It is an utter impossibility for man to be both material and spiritual, and the reader can see very clearly that to proclaim the reality of matter and a material creation is to deny the plain teachings of the Bible, which is the very thing our critic accuses Christian Science of doing.

Christian Science teaches that sin is not a spiritual fact and is therefore not real, and the same applies to matter; but Christian Science does not say that sin and matter do not seem real to human consciousness. Mrs. Eddy's writings iterate and reiterate the necessity for humanity's confession and repentance of sin, and that sin is not forgiven until forsaken. The third religious tenet of Christian Science reads: "We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts" (Science and Health, p. 497).

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Fair-minded persons will see upon a moment's reflection...

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access