Please allow me to make a few remarks on your statement...

Meinrad Schnewlin, Committee on Publication for German-speaking Switzerland,—(The Golden Age), Berne, Switzerland (translation)

Das goldene Zeitalter

Please allow me to make a few remarks on your statement in the issue of August 15.

It is possible to defend every religious opinion with passages from the Scriptures, and each one will maintain that his interpretation is the correct one. But the decision as to which is correct lies only in a proof so palpable that no one can reject it. Jesus and his disciples proved to their contemporaries by their works that they were endowed with divine authority. Jesus said: "Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." Christian Science is repeating these works. They are, as Jesus prophesied, the signs which "shall follow them that believe." Such works cannot be brought about by suggestion or by human will-power. Real healing is brought about solely by God; hence it is absolutely necessary to "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." The aim of Christian Science is primarily the overcoming of sin.

You say in your article that instead of a personal God Christian Science knows only a cosmic soul with whom one cannot talk intimately. This might lead to misunderstandings. Christian Science teaches belief in a personal God in the sense that God is infinite Person. It teaches also that God is man's Life, his substance, his intelligence.

Men must follow the Master's example, of which Mary Baker Eddy writes on pages 476 and 477 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" as follows: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."

Concerning prayer, the textbook mentioned above says, on page 1: "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love."

Sin is not overcome by ignoring it, but by confronting it, taking off its mask, recognizing it as a lie. If divine Love is being reflected, sin will disappear as darkness before light. Suggestion or human so-called will can never have such an effect, "but the Father ... he doeth the works."

In no way does Christian Science deny the Christian teachings. It demands that the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes and all the teachings of Jesus be adhered to. A large part of the four Gospels is filled with accounts of the healings Jesus accomplished, and Christian Science demands that Christians follow the Master's example in this respect, too, thus putting on not only half but the whole garment. "Whatever materializes worship hinders man's spiritual growth" (Science and Health, pp. 4, 5).

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