Article May 5, 1917 Issue

Recently the Christian Science Society in Corvallis invited...

F. Elmo Robinson—Corvallis, Ore.

Benton County Courier

Recently the Christian Science Society in Corvallis invited an authorized lecturer to deliver a lecture on Christian Science in that city for the benefit of those who desired to learn more of these teachings. A clergyman who read this lecture evidently was not pleased with it. It did not coincide with his particular religious creed. He therefore selected a few quotations from the lecture, put his own erroneous construction upon them, and by the number and character of questions raised in the Courier, clearly indicated that he had completely missed the points the lecturer was setting forth.

Christian Science teaches that there is but one cause and creator, God, Spirit, and therefore but one creation, spiritual, perfect, and harmonious. It does not teach that there are two creations, one spiritual and the other material; that there are two men, one spiritual and the other material; nor does it teach that man is both spiritual and material, but that, being the image and likeness of God, of Spirit, he must forever be wholly spiritual. What appears to human sense as a material universe and a material man, together with the accompanying beliefs in sin, disease, and death, does not constitute a separate creation, nor is it a part of God's creation. Both matter and evil are unreal because not of God. One who had a genuine silver dollar and a counterfeit dollar could not be said to have two dollars. Even so in Christian Science we do not recognize a sinning, suffering, dying material mortal as man at all, since man is God's image and likeness, spiritual and perfect. On page 476 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says: "Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals. They are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil, which declares that man begins in dust or as a material embryo."

Our critic has raised among other questions the following: "If man is 'a thought of God,' and must always abide in the infinite Mind, because Mind and its idea cannot be separated, how in the name of common sense did man get to dying and taking on sickness and having train wrecks then?" The answer to this question, according to the Scriptures and according to the teachings of Christian Science, is to be found in the following statement from the first epistle of John: "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Note here the statement of John concerning man born of God. He says, "He cannot sin." Christian Science is in perfect accord with this statement, and therefore teaches that man, the image and likeness of God, does not "get to dying and taking on sickness and having train wrecks."

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