Article August 10, 1929 Issue

Unfailing Opportunity

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

The influence of Christian Science upon the religious thought of Christendom is beyond calculation. The crude and cruel beliefs regarding Deity which a pagan priestcraft impressed upon the pre-Christian world have largely given place to more humane and rational concepts. Many remember the terror and abhorrence aroused by the teaching of a literal and eternal hell, and the difficulty experienced in trying to think lovingly of a creator who could punish His unfortunate children without giving them another opportunity to do better.

For more than fifty years Christian Science has been presenting to men a demonstration of the nature of Deity as supremely lovable and love-inspiring, this being in full accord with Jesus' definition of God as Father. This inspired teaching has wrought a revolution in Christian thought regarding the great questions of human salvation and destiny, and has thereby lifted much of the burden of superstition and fear which had lain so heavily upon a troubled world.

In Christian Science, God is understood to be all-loving, all-powerful divine Mind or Principle, in whose ever-presence is no place for torment either here or hereafter. The Psalmist recognized that, even though there should appear to be a sense of suffering called hell, this could not affect the presence of God, since hell is but the attempt of so-called mortal mind to oppose good. Christian Science does not deny that the experience called hell sooner or later accompanies submission to sin; but it does take away belief in evil as real. By its very negativeness, by its utter lack of God's approval, the suppositional opposite of divine consciousness exposes not only its inevitable self-punishment, but its final self-destruction, since nothing apart from God can be eternal.

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