Article June 7, 1919 Issue

If there is one thing that exasperates the human mind it...

John Ashcroft

Moberly (Mo.) Index

If there is one thing that exasperates the human mind it is to have challenged its belief in the reality of that which causes it the most trouble. Most people will admit that belief in the reality of matter lies at the root of all poverty, sin, disease, and death; yet when this reality is challenged, and challenged on the basis of the Scriptural teaching of the omnipresence of God, Spirit, the world, and especially the theological world, protests as though its most cherished possession was in jeopardy.

The avalanche of criticism of Christian Science launched by a clergyman, and recorded in the Index, concerns itself largely with the repudiation of Mrs. Eddy's teaching regarding the unreality of matter. And yet it must be apparent to anyone who will give the subject logical consideration that the teaching of the Scriptures that God, Spirit, is omnipresent—ever present and everywhere present—must exclude the existence of matter as a fact. Like produces like; hence the logic of Mrs. Eddy's contention, "Man is not material; he is spiritual" (Science and Health, p. 468). One of the great services Mrs. Eddy has rendered humanity has been to direct attention to the record of spiritual creation in the first chapter of Genesis, a record into which matter does not enter, and in which man is declared to be the image and likeness of God, of Spirit.

Apparently Christ Jesus did not attach much importance to matter, nor yet to material law, which our critic apparently regrets to see violated. "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment," he said; and again, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." And he proceeded to demonstrate his superiority to matter and material law by healing the sick, stilling the tempest, transporting himself from place to place at his own pleasure without material means of travel, feeding the multitude with what appeared to be a wholly inadequate supply, and repeatedly raising the dead. Paul was able to perform the last service for Eutychus; and this apostle evidently realized that matter and material law are not the all-important things they are generally believed to be, for he emphatically declared in his letter to the church at Rome that "they that are in the flesh cannot please God;" and furthermore that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" had made him free from "the law of sin and death."

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