Article March 7, 1925 Issue

There is no reason why one should fear to express an...

George C. Palmer, Committee on Publication for Saskatchewan, Canada,—Saskatoon

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There is no reason why one should fear to express an opinion when sincerely or honestly felt. If love to God and man governs, there can be no semblance of bitterness or rivalry. When, however, such a phrase as "there is no pain, no sickness, because there is no matter" is placed before the public in quotation marks and the word "insane" used, we have the right to ask for chapter and verse. The writer was taught to love the Bible from his earliest days, and to ponder its teachings. Later arose questions which caused genuine perplexity over the accuracy of generally taught and accepted theories. God was defined as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent,—three large words which if united eliminate the least element of limitation from the Being possessing such characteristics. Further, God was defined as being eternal, changeless, and good. But the information was presented that the conditions experienced by mortals and apparent to the physical senses as sin, sickness, and death are allowed by and authorized by this infinite God. The above description of the Almighty being conceded, in plain English this means that evil is a part of God and that it exists as part of God's universe. Yet people were taught to resist evil; that God made man sick, but that it was legitimate for man to oppose this decision and get better if he could. It is excusable, therefore, to argue that if sickness is a gift from God, or part of His purpose for any reason, man should gladly be sick and not strive against God's will.

So it is with sin. The teaching that God provided means by which man might sin, and knew that man would sin, but that in order that man's allegiance to Him might be proved, God gave him a knowledge of evil but punished him for using it, was, to say the least, perplexing. I turned to the Bible. There it was found that Jesus healed sickness. Would he have done this had he felt either that sickness was divinely authorized, or that it had any elevating or spiritual value at all? Mortals often turn in their extremity to God, but this does not justify the doctrine of divinely created sickness. Moreover, Jesus healed by his understanding of the truth about God and man, which he said "shall make you free." Why taunt mankind with the doctrine that these were miracles, and that they belonged to the first century, not the twentieth? I also found that Christ Jesus saved from sin. Upon what basis? If God allows man to sin, Jesus should not have interfered. If sin exists as a real quality in the divine Mind, it is legitimate for man to sin, for man would be Godlike in so doing.

Mrs. Eddy's teachings are perverted by the critics. It is in the sense that evil is no part of God's creation that Christian Science calls it unreal. Why is the teaching "insane" which declares that as long as people deify evil—sin, sickness, disease, matter, and their inevitable outcome, death—by granting them a place in God's real kingdom, they can never be overcome? If Jesus said, "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up," and again, "I am not come to destroy," we may safely conclude that when he destroyed sin and sickness and raised the dead, he did not contend that they were real except to blundering human sense, which is diametrically opposed to the spiritual understanding of man as God's image and likeness. There is but one cause and creator; and the sense in which evil is called unreal is that its seeming origin is wholly apart from the divine creation. If evil be indulged, it must necessarily bring disaster. This is one of the cardinal points in the teaching of Christian Science. The following is one of many passages from Mrs. Eddy's writings corroborating this point (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 319): "They [Christian Scientists] must either be overcoming sin in themselves, or they must not lose sight of sin; else they are self-deceived sinners of the worst sort." Surely it is a reasonable contention that if evil is supported by God you cannot overcome it, and you should not try to.

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