Article February 20, 1926 Issue

In answer to your correspondent's letter may we say we do...

Miss V. M. Blancha Stievenard, Committee on Publication for Hertfordshire, England,—Letchworth

Citizen,

In answer to your correspondent's letter may we say we do not know the book to which he refers for quotations, namely, "Christian Science and Health, seventy-fourth edition, 1893." Most likely he means "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, which passed through many editions and was often revised by her with a view to making the text clearer, until 1910; since when the text has not been altered. It would, of course, be impossible to verify the quotations, though it is quite possible to touch upon the points of teaching involved.

With regard to No. vi, "God is not a Person" (capital P), this sentence is not to be found anywhere in the textbook of Christian Science. On the contrary, in Mrs. Eddy's Message to The Mother Church for 1901 the following sentence appears (p.11): "Whosoever saith there is no sermon without personal preaching, forgets what Christian Scientists do not, namely, that God is a Person, and that he should be willing to hear a sermon from his personal God!" This, however, does not mean that God is like a finite human being, as she explains in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p.2) thus: "In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely individual, and not a person, as that word is used by the best authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining person as especially a finite human being; but God is personal, if by person is meant infinite Spirit." The confusion arises when the word "person" is used in a finite human sense; when applied to God it must mean infinite Person.

The same explanation will apply to No. viii. The Christ is described in the Bible as "having neither beginning of days, nor end of life." This, however, could not be said of the bodily manifestation of Jesus. On this question we read in Science and Health (p.334): "The invisible Christ was imperceptible to the so-called personal sense, whereas Jesus appeared as a bodily existence. This dual personality of the unseen and the seen, the spiritual and material, the eternal Christ and the corporeal Jesus manifest in flesh, continued until the Master's ascension." This also clearly shows that Christian Scientists do accept the fact "that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."

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