Article January 31, 1931 Issue

I respectfully request permission to correct through your...

J. Latimer Davis, Committee on Publication for the State of Iowa,—Pella

Baptist Record

I respectfully request permission to correct through your columns the erroneous inference that Christian Science is a "no-God religion," which appeared in an article from the Watchman-Examiner reprinted in the Record on August 16.

Under the caption "Wanted a Personal God," the writer of that article said: "When Christian Science changes God into a principle it thereby becomes a no-God religion." Among the words Mrs. Eddy employs to define God is the word "Principle," it is true, but that word is always capitalized by her when meant to apply to Deity; and in the way she uses it the word means infinitely more than and is vastly different from the meaning conveyed by the limited term "a principle." As employed in Christian Science the capitalized word "Principle" portrays the highest possible signification, including the omnipotence and self-existence of Deity.

Referring to her use of Principle to designate God, Mrs. Eddy writes on page 3 of her Message to The Mother Church for 1901: "To define Love in divine Science we use this phrase for God—divine Principle. By this we mean Mind, a permanent, fundamental, intelligent, divine Being, called in Scripture, Spirit, Love." Throughout her writings she unfolds a concept of God which immeasurably magnifies Him as the infinite One. According to Christian Science God is understood to be the one and only source of all that actually exists, including man in His image and likeness, in consonance with the Scriptural declaration that He made all and "without him was not any thing made that was made."

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