Article March 31, 1934 Issue

The anonymous letter on Christian Science in your...

Charles M. Shaw, former Committee on Publication for Lancashire, England,

Blackburn Times

The anonymous letter on Christian Science in your recent issue is obviously from one who is interested in Christian Science but who has failed to comprehend its teaching on the subject raised. It seems necessary to point out that Christian Science teaches that belief in error—through ignorance of Truth—produces all evil, which, while seeming very real to the believers, is a subjective experience, collective as well as individual. Many who inquire into Christian Science and learn that it teaches one infinite Mind ever present and omniscient are puzzled to account for the origin of this belief.

Your correspondent ventures on the hypothesis that spiritual man, whom Christian Science identifies with the image and likeness of God, is the believer and thus the creator of evil experiences. This implies that man has an intelligence and existence apart from God, a supposition which is the very opposite of Christian Science teaching. To quote from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 475) by Mrs. Eddy, where man is defined in part as "that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker." Therefore, to say that spiritual man is the believer is equivalent to saying that infinite Mind, supreme intelligence, entertains erroneous beliefs, and this, of course, is absurd.

Starting from the fact that mortals can entertain error or truth, Christian Science explains that mortal belief or error is impersonal and supposititious, and that when it is accepted in human thought, and acted upon, it result in apparently real evil. But Christian Science also explains and demonstrates that when error is recognized to be impersonal and unreal it can be overcome in the degree Truth is understood. This phase of the subject is not one so much for abstract reasoning as for practical demonstration.

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