Article May 9, 1925 Issue

In the report, in your issue of recent date, of a lecture...

David A. Giel, Committee on Publication for Holland,—The Hague (translation)

Het Vaderland,

In the report, in your issue of recent date, of a lecture on Christian Science, there appear a number of misrepresentations of its teachings, which place it in quite a false light. The lecture was announced as "apologetic," and Christian Science was put into the dock and called to account. When a teaching that claims to be a return to the primitive teaching of Christ Jesus, in its fullness,—namely, with the works or "signs following,"—is accused of not being Christlike, but of leading away from the Christ, while its healings are relegated to chance and suggestion, the apology becomes rather anæmic. Fortunately the first charge, and nearly all the subsequent ones, are insufficiently substantiated. The attitude, whereby the burden of proof is shifted upon the accused, may be clever from a tactical standpoint, but it violates a sense of justice. Because of lack of argument I should in fact have to give a survey of Christian Science teaching on all the points brought forward by the speaker. This, of course, being impossible here, I shall limit myself to a few remarks.

Christian Science puts in the forefront the fact that God is Love. This statement, though taken from the Bible, finds no favor in the critic's eyes, for he regards it as proof that to Christian Scientists God is "something impersonal" instead of a great spiritual being. I quote the following words from the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 116): "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."

As to the Christianity of Christian Science I need only to quote two of its tenets, to be found on page 497 of said textbook: "We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness. ... We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death."

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