Article October 6, 1923 Issue

"Who did sin?"

LILIAN S. MORRISON

The Scriptural account of the healing of the one born blind, given in the ninth chapter of John, has given much thought to the Christian Scientist. Its meaning was not at first clear to one student; for there had persisted the troubled sense that God had either created or permitted evil, in order that the supreme power of good might be proved, as the words, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him," seem to imply. In Christian Science we learn that God does not create evil or permit it that good may come; for a perfect creator could not possibly create anything unlike good, since like produces like. Nevertheless, the words had troubled and confused.

In the question his disciples put to Jesus, "Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" the belief is expressed that one may suffer for the sins of his ancestors; although in Ezekiel it is stated explicitly that one is not punished for another's transgressions. For instance, we find there the statement, "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father." Again, the law of heredity is clearly set aside in the words, "What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel." Christian Science defines God as divine Love, and shows justice and mercy to be attributes of God.

These arguments were presented to Jesus; but Mrs. Eddy states in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 286): "Physical causation was put aside from first to last by this original man, Jesus. He knew that the divine Principle, Love, creates and governs all that is real." May not Jesus have meant, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but [he lives] that the works of God should be made manifest in him"? May he not have thus stated God's purpose in man,—to reflect God, to express in its entirety all that is good? This understanding destroys the belief that sin and sickness belong to man as part of God's creation. After showing by the anointing with the clay, that it was only false material sense which could claim to blind one to man's true existence as the son of God, Jesus employed water as a type of spiritual purification; we are told that the man "went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing."

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