Editorial October 2, 1926 Issue

Man is Unfallen

Duncan Sinclair

What a revelation is that which Christian Science gives as to the nature of the real man! Not that this revelation is new, for it occurs in the first chapter of Genesis; but because Christian Science states it in all its fullness, clearness, and simplicity. After Mrs. Eddy had grasped the significance of the truth of the allness of God,—that God is the infinite One, the one Mind, Soul, or Principle,—she discovered the fact that man, the image and likeness of God, is perfect, and therefore unfallen. In the first chapter of Genesis it reads: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him. . . . And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." And on page 548 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science writes: "In this Science, we discover man in the image and likeness of God. We see that man has never lost his spiritual estate and his eternal harmony."

What a wonderful revelation! But does it actually mean that man is sinless? asks some one. Does it actually mean that man does not know evil or practice evil? That is exactly what it means. Just as God, the Principle or cause of man's being, is infinitely good, so man, the effect of perfect cause, can express only good. Indeed, Christian Science maintains that since God, good, is infinite, evil is an illusion or falsity, and that, consequently, the real man never has been, is not now, and never can be contaminated with evil. "Beloved," writes John, "now are we the sons of God."

It must be obvious that the teaching of Christian Science about the nature of man is in flat contradiction to the concept mortals hold of him. To them man is far from perfect—often a poor miserable sinner, a pitiable creature, the victim of all manner of disease, "born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward"! What a struggle mortals have with what they believe is "fallen man"; and save that "fallen man" they think they must! What do they do toward this end? To save him from sickness they subject him to drugs, to physical and mental manipulation, to change of climate, and many other such like things, all of them of a material nature; and to cure him of his evil ways,—his sins,—they perhaps hold out to him the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice.

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