Article April 5, 1924 Issue

Phrase it as you will, it is not conceivable that one...

Rev. Louis E. Scholl, Committee on Publication for the State of Washington,—Buckley

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Phrase it as you will, it is not conceivable that one supposedly made of dust, a counterfeit, erring, fleshly mortal, is the man God made in His image and likeness and pronounced "good." Christian Science does not accept the teaching that God made this erring mortal, knowing he would fall, and then punished him for falling, because this is not in conformity with Jesus' teaching of God as Father, infinitely more loving than any earthly father can be; and it would be an inhuman father who would deliberately place temptation before his child, and then punish the child for yielding to it.

There are two separate and distinct stories of creation. One is in the first chapter of Genesis and the first five verses of the second, while the second story is in the second chapter beginning with the sixth verse. The first story, as understood in Christian Science, is the true story of God's creation of the spiritually real man. The second is of the unreal mortal. Speaking of this truth, which the world as yet so little comprehends, but which has brought healing and happiness to many, Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 476): "Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual status of man, which is outside of all material selfhood. ... When speaking of God's children, not the children of men, Jesus said, 'The kingdom of God is within you;' that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God's image is unfallen and eternal."

Christian Science does not teach that Jesus' sole mission was to heal the body. Instead, it teaches that that was the smallest part of Jesus' mission, as it is of Christian Science. This mission is not so much to save from future punishment as to teach men to think, act, and live aright.

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