Article January 25, 1919 Issue

"Right reasoning"

FLORENCE DAVIS KELLER

The question asked by a small child in the Sunday school class, "Am I crippled because my papa was bad?" recalls the question of the disciples in regard to the blind man whom Jesus healed, "Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me."

Christian Science teaches the fatherhood of God absolutely; that is to say, that God is Father of the real man. It follows naturally that the father of error or discord is the false concept of life in matter. When Jesus rebuked the arguments of error he said: "Ye are of your father the devil." Down the ages has come this lie, that man is fathered by a power apart from God; but there is no truth in it. It lasts only so long as it is believed in; therefore, as Jesus said, the lie of discord but indicates that the works of God are yet to be made manifest in place of the inharmony. On page 262 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" we read, "The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of man's origin;" and on page 492 we have the correcting truth, "For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence."

In the teachings of the Master we may trace the Ten Commandments. In keeping with the first and the second, Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind;" and he also said, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." To love God with all the affections is to reflect Love. It is to look above and beyond the person, object, or condition, and see as the loving heavenly Father sees His own idea. With what ineffable love the All-love must continually and eternally regard His own creation! It is scholastic theology that has robbed the child of its smile and joy by its teaching of both a good creation and a bad creation; of a power that is good and a power that is evil; of a God who is Love, but who is also a God of wrath. Surely the material record of creation, with its train of sorrow, discord, and struggle, does not show forth the work of our God who is the one Mind. Here Christian Science dispels the mystery, and shows to the waiting thought the spiritual and the true, without blemish or imperfection.

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