Article April 2, 1927 Issue

A contributor to your columns said in a recent issue of...

J. Latimer Davis,

Centerville Daily Iowegian and Citizen

A contributor to your columns said in a recent issue of the Iowegian and Citizen that she could not accept Christian Science because "much of it is contradictory to God's Word," while she believes that Word to be true. It may, therefore, be somewhat suprising to her to learn that Christian Science accepts the Bible as wholly true, and that this outstanding fact is apparent from the first tenet of this religious teaching, found on page 497 of the Christian Science, textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. The tenet reads, "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life." It may be that your correspondent's views differ from those of Christian Science regarding Bible teaching, but such difference of opinion does not warrant her assertion that Christian Science therefore contradicts the Bible. In no respect does Christian Science teaching do this; but, on the contrary, it proves the Scripture by making its truths practicable in the solution of all problems in human experience. When our critic said that Christian Science holds creation to be only a "myth" and that God "did not create the world" and "did not create man," she did so without basing her assertion on anything found in the teaching she attempted thus to describe and criticize. For Christian Science neither makes any such statements nor implies them. On the contrary, it declares God to be the creator of that has actual existence, and that His creation is wholly good, as recorded in Scripture. Furthermore, quite in harmony with Jesus' declaration that God is Spirit, Mrs. Eddy holds God's creation to be spiritual, and not material. Mrs. Eddy, speaking on this subject, says (ibid., p. 472): "All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God."

From the foregoing quotation is seen also the Christian Science viewpoint of sin, sickness, and death, which is quite different from what our critic claimed when saying that Christian Science taught "there is no such thing as sin, sickness, or death." Christian Science does not deny that these are to be found in human experience, but it does deny their existence as a part of man's true being. Christ Jesus did not teach that they were real: he proved their unreality by overcoming them. The mission of Jesus was not to save men from "something which does not exist," nor to heal the sick when "there is no such thing as sickness," as our critic inferred Christian Science teaches. Christ Jesus came to save mankind from the awful deception of this triad of errors, all of which, including even the "last enemy," death, Paul declared should be destroyed. And Jesus destroyed them. This he could not have done had they possessed the essence of actual existence as a creation of God.

Your readers were advised by our critic to read I John 4:1–3, so that they might see for themselves that Christian Science is representing the "spirit of antichrist" named in the reference. It is hoped that those Bible verses were thoroughly studied by all who noticed them, and that they will be read again; for they completely lift from Christian Science the ban which your correspondent would have placed upon it. Her claim that Christian Science is the "antichrist" mentioned in the quoted Scripture was based upon her own assertion that Mrs. Eddy denied that Christ Jesus came in the flesh to earth. But no such denial was ever made by Mrs. Eddy; nor is anything like it to be found in any of her writings. What she does say on this subject may be found on page 30 of the Christian Science textbook already mentioned. It reads: "Born of a woman, Jesus' advent in the flesh partook partly of Mary's earthly condition, although he was endowed with the Christ, the divine Spirit, without measure. ... Had his origin and birth been wholly apart from mortal usage, Jesus would not have been appreciable to mortal as 'the way.'"