The New Testament and Logic

The absence of logic is the weakness which perhaps most frequently betrays the ordinary man engaged in a discussion of any description. In a mere argument this is bad enough, but as the matter in dispute approaches the domain of Science, the absence of logic becomes positively disastrous. Sometimes this absence appears in the most unexpected places. It appeared in Berkeley's recommendation of tar water as a universal panacea, for Berkeley was the last man in the whole world, holding his views of the unreality of matter, who should have been guilty of such a proposal. It is to be found also in Sir Isaac Newton's battle with Leibnitz on the subject of space, and became the main contention in the latter philosopher's famous letter to the Princess of Wales. It is, therefore, not very extraordinary that it should have manifested itself in the highest degree in the discussion of theology, for it used to be the boast of theologians that Science and revelation were antitheses, and that the admission of Science to the spiritual realm would immediately destroy the quality of faith.

"Now faith," says the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," which, if it means anything at all, means that faith is the first indication of a truly spiritual perception. Paul, however, in writing to the Corinthians, explains that "now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face;" consequently, there can be no question that though faith may be the thing which faintly indicates a perception of spiritual reality, this faith must be broadened into understanding before the reality can be seen face to face. And this is exactly what Mrs. Eddy means when she says, on page 297 of Science and Health, "Until belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual understanding, human thought has little relation to the actual or divine."

It is, naturally, because it is easier to argue on a basis of faith than of understanding that the chasm between revelation and Science yawned so widely in the centuries that are passed. Christ Jesus had made demonstration the test of faith. If, he had declared, a man had faith as a grain of mustard seed, he could say to yonder mountain, Be removed, and it would be so. In other words, he was insistent on the fact that because material phenomena were nothing but the subjective condition of the human mind, the mountain could only be moved through a mental process, and the same process, of course, applied to the removal of disease. It was on this basis, and on this basis, and on this basis alone, that he healed the sick and raised the dead, fed the multitude and walked upon the water. But nobody knew better than he the difference between faith and scientific knowledge, and therefore it was he who said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." For a knowledge of Truth is necessarily an absolute, scientific knowledge, and in proportion as a man gains this absolute, scientific knowledge, he gains that freedom from ignorance, from even faith, which places him in a position to demonstrate his knowledge in the way Christ Jesus demanded that it should be demonstrated, when he said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." The Greek of the gospel of John makes a distinct difference between believing on a person and merely believing a person. The point is too long a one to labor in an article on another subject, but the distinction, according to the great scholars, is very much the distinction between faith and scientific knowledge.