Article February 14, 1920 Issue

In a sermon as reported in a recent issue, an evangelist...

James M. Stevens—Virginia, Minn.

Daily Virginian

In a sermon as reported in a recent issue, an evangelist quotes Mrs. Eddy and refers to Christian Science in a way which is misleading when he says, "Mrs. Eddy says: 'Man is incapable of sin.' Yes, she does; she says it on page 174 of the 176th edition. But John says: 'If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar.' So God's a liar or Mrs. Eddy is, and so, of course, Christian Science is without atonement."

The sentence which he partly quotes, and which is to be found on page 475 of the later editions of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, with its immediate context reads: "Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God's man." As will be readily seen from the completed quotation Mrs. Eddy does not claim that the mortal or carnal man does not sin. What she does maintain is that the real man, the man whom God created "in his own image," and who cannot, therefore, have a quality unlike God, cannot sin.

The trouble with our critic is, apparently, that he does not differentiate between the spiritual, real man who, the Bible tells us, was created in the image and likeness of God, and the material man who is the product of the mortal or carnal mind, of which Paul says in the eighth chapter of Romans: "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." This carnal or fleshly man is clearly the man of whom John writes in the passage (I John 1:10) which is partly quoted by our critic.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

In a sermon as reported in a recent issue, an evangelist...

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access