Article February 1, 1919 Issue

Replying to the numerous erroneous and misleading...

Albert F. Gilmore—New York, N. Y.

The Standard

Replying to the numerous erroneous and misleading statements which appear in the article, "Philosophy and Morals of Christian Science," it is very evident that this denunciation of the teachings of Mrs. Eddy is the result of failure on the part of the writer of the article to grasp the fundamental truth upon which the structure of Christian Science teaching rests. And because of lack of such understanding, that which is in reality pure logic, unanswerable and unerring, appears to him contradictory and confusing.

Christian Science is pure idealism. Its followers believe it to be the restoration of primitive Christianity, reproducing the works of Christ Jesus in fulfillment of his declaration as to the capabilities of "them that believe." It accepts the Elohistic account of creation, found in the first chapter of Genesis and the first four verses of the second, as the true statement of creation—perfect, infinite God, supreme intelligence or Mind, the only cause and creator of the universe; and man in His image and likeness, perfect and eternal as God Himself. It also accepts the second account of creation, the Jehovistic, as the story of the origin of the false or material concept of creation, wherein appears all that pertains to the mortal belief of man, including sin, sickness, and death. This account relates exclusively to the so-called material creation, the counterfeit, the lie about the true creation, which has its only existence in the false consciousness which Paul termed the carnal mind. It was against this simulation of the true creation that Jesus made that startling arraignment recorded in the fourth gospel: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do ... When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." In mortal mind dwell the beliefs concerning mortal man, having no relation to the real man of God's creating who dwells "in the secret place of the most High."

While Christian Science does teach the unreality of matter with all its seeming attributes, qualities, and conditions, it does not deny that all the phenomena relating to matter are quite real to the physical senses; in short, just as real as the physical senses make them. As pure idealism Christian Science teaches that forces, gases, electrons, ions, and the like, into which physicists have conveniently resolved matter, are no whit less material than the paving stones upon which. Doctor Johnson so derisively stamped to emphasize the substantiality of that particular form of matter. Yet once accepting the only scientific definition of substance, that which is "incapable of discord and decay" (Science and Health, p. 468), it will be readily seen how far short of real substance matter is, in any of its attributes. Jesus set forth the whole question with unrivaled terseness in his message to Nicodemus, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," and again, "If is the spirit that quickeneth." If we accept God as Spirit, infinite and perfect, it seems quite like the attempt to build extensions to infinity to attach to His creation, which He called "very good," a universe of matter in which are included all the experiences known as sin, misery, sickness, and death. Christian Science accepts the fact of a perfect creation, spiritual, harmonious, and eternal, inclusive of all the facts of existence.

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