It is just as impossible for our clerical critic to render...

Willis D. McKinstry

The Blue Rapids (Kan.) Times

It is just as impossible for our clerical critic to render invalid the teachings of Christian Science through his erroneous statements and arguments based upon popular Christianity, as it is for a mariner to keep his vessel in a direct course without a rudder. Spiritual truths are not capable of an explanation based upon materiality or human opinions. Christian Science deals with the Scriptures from a spiritual basis and reveals God's means and methods of helping humanity as demonstrated by His Son, Christ Jesus, who declared, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." If this statement of the Nazarene is accepted as true, why does our critic make such ado about matter? Why should he feel disturbed because of what Christian Science teaches about the unreality of matter?

To declare for the reality and substantiality of matter is to oppose the teachings of our colleges and universities of to-day. Let us read what some of the world's eminent scholars and instructors have to say upon the subject of matter. Mr. Huxley says, "After all what do we know of this terrible matter except as the name of the unknown hypothetical cause of states of our consciousness." Such eminent natural scientists as Lord Kelvin and Sir William Crooks, according to newspaper reports, have concluded that atoms in their last analysis are forces, a conclusion which shows a tendency toward mental, rather than material causation. Grant Allen says, "The charges of materialism could only be brought against such a man by those abject materialists who have never had a glimpse of the profounder fact that the universe, as known to us, consists wholly of mind, and that matter is a doubtful and uncertain inference of the human intelligence." Professor Fiske expresses his opinion thus: "Apart from consciousness there are no such things as color, form, position, or hardness and there is no such thing as matter."

Christian Science does not teach that matter and material things do not exist as human phenomena, but it does demonstrate that the appearance to which the senses testify is not a creation of God, Spirit. However, this human sense or appearance of a natural universe and a matter man does not destroy the spiritual fact of existence, and Christian Science awakens mankind to understand and prove his divine sonship, existing in a spiritual universe governed and controlled by God, infinite Love. "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. ... For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."

Our critic takes exception to the use of the term Principle as a synonym for God, as used in Christian Science. Principle is primary, it is that from which something proceeds or emanates. The Bible teaches that God is first, that He is cause, origin, or basis of all real existence, that it is He who created the universe and all it contains. Then is it not a logical conclusion that God being first of all and having made all that was made, must be the Principle of it? God is Love, therefore the cause, origin, or Principle of the universe, including man, must be Love. Christian Science defines God not only as Principle or Love, but as infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Truth, Life; and only as we recognize God in this infinite way, do we understand or know Him as Supreme Being, the one and only creator.

Our critic quotes from the first chapter of Genesis the true record of creation. Then he endeavors to have others believe that Christian Science treats this creation purely as delusion, which is wholly untrue, for upon this record of creation, and the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," rests the truth of scientific being as taught and demonstrated by Christian Science. This Scriptural record sets forth the spiritual facts of existence, including man created in the image and likeness of God, yes, male and female. No element of materiality or matter enters into it; it manifests the substance of Spirit, God. When referring to man, our friend ignores this first record of spiritual creation by taking up the second account of creation which states that the "Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." Right here is the parting of the way from the perfection of spiritual being or existence as created by God, divine Mind; it is the entrance of the finite, human, or perverted sense of the carnal or mortal mind's creation, which Paul declared was "enmity against God." With the erroneous belief of a matter man, comes all the discord of human living,—sin, disease, hatred, dishonesty, selfishness, envy, jealousy, sensuality, and death.

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