Article September 16, 1922 Issue

Christian Science, like John, teaches that God is Love,...

Willard J. Welch, Committee on Publication for the State of Iowa, in the

Denison Bulletin and Herald

Christian Science, like John, teaches that God is Love, and that obedience to Love, or having that Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus," destroys in the human thought those beliefs of hatred which lead to murder and to other crimes. On page 113 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, "The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love." This religion of Love cannot be and is not "a religion of mental assassination." The loving thinker is not the hating thinker. He does not kill his brother. Assassination ... must be thought before it can be committed. Christian Scientists strive to practice the Scriptural command, "Love your enemies."

Christian Science ... agrees with John's statement that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." To show exactly Mrs. Eddy's teaching on this subject I quote word for word from page 46 of Science and Health: "The Master said plainly that physique was not Spirit, and after his resurrection he proved to the physical senses that his body was not changed until he himself ascended,—or, in other words, rose even higher in the understanding of Spirit, God. To convince Thomas of this, Jesus caused him to examine the nail-prints and the spear-wound." This agrees with the Scriptural statement that Jesus "bare our sins in his own body on the tree."

Christian Science does indeed declare that God is Principle. Revelation calls Him the "Alpha and Omega,"—that is, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last. The word "principle" means origin, beginning, the first. God is the origin of all. This origin of all is Love. John tells us that "God is a Spirit," and that no man has seen God at any time. God cannot therefore be flesh and blood,—that is, corporeal; but must be incorporeal, the supreme intelligence,—that is, Mind. It is plain that infinite Being cannot be called a personality in the human sense. Let us see exactly what Christian Science does teach on this subject. On page 116 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy says: "As the words person and personal are commonly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity and its distinction from humanity. If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite Person,—in the sense of infinite personality, but not in the lower sense. An infinite Mind in a finite form is an absolute impossibility."