Article September 11, 1920 Issue

Christian Scientists have only an academic interest in...

John M. Dean—Memphis, Tenn.

The News Scimitar

Christian Scientists have only an academic interest in the methods of healing employed by the gentleman referred to in a recent editorial, but they must kindly take issue with your conclusions in the same connection concerning "laws of health." Christian Science consistently contends that health is natural and normal, while disease is abnormal. It also maintains that as God is the supreme lawmaker of the universe, His laws properly applied must inevitably operate to annul every asserted law of discord. God, being omnipotent in His goodness, could not and would not make a law of inharmony. Man suffers as a consequence of his own sins, and not because of any act of God. As men gradually learn their real origin and nature, they will "put off the old man" and "put on the new man" described by Paul. This "new man" is the man made in God's "image,"—the Godlike man of the first chapter of Genesis. As a proper understanding of this man is gained, it will be seen that what men call "natural law" is not a law and only seems to be such because of popular acquiescence in its false claims.

To question the all-power of divine laws is to impugn the authenticity of the Bible. Impossibilities never occur. The work of Jesus was termed miraculous because it was unusual. His work consisted merely in the establishment of law, for no fundamental law could ever be annulled in the slightest degree. A "law" that could be suspended even momentarily was never a law. What has been done once can be done again by the employment of the same methods. Mrs. Eddy claimed merely to have rediscovered the spiritual process used by Christ Jesus, and this method logically and demonstrably contradicts every assumed law of matter. Hundreds of thousands of intelligent people are measurably proving this, and let us hope that the day is not far distant when the whole Christian world will recognize and begin the practice of the law of Spirit as made operative by Jesus in every direction.

Jesus turned water into wine, thus setting aside the law of chemistry; he walked on the water, thus overcoming the law of gravitation; he fed the multitude with a handful of bread and fishes, thus annulling the accepted law of production; he passed through closed doors, thus disproving the law regarding the substantiality of matter; he quieted the storm, thus putting to naught the law of the elements; when he so desired, "immediately the ship was at the land," thus overcoming the law of time and space; and finally he healed the sick and raised the dead, including himself, in direct contradiction of all human law and experience. Either Jesus did these things or he did not. If he did them, certainly the impotence of material "laws of nature" is forever established. If he did not do them, then the Bible is filled with fables, and we are left to grope in the darkness of materiality and are forever shut out from the employment of the only method by which man can ever expect to be wholly saved. If the only office of religion is to offer superficial "consolation" to the victims of evils which religion is powerless to prevent or remove, the world is indeed in a hopeless condition and Christianity is a failure.

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