Article May 6, 1939 Issue

A correspondent in a recent issue makes some comment...

William K. Primrose, Assistant to the District Manager of Committees on Publication for Great Britain and Ireland,

Chatham, Rochester, and Gillingham News

A correspondent in a recent issue makes some comment on the report of a Christian Science lecture in your paper. In reply, may I state that in answer to the question, "What is God?" Mrs. Eddy writes on page 465 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." Again, in the Glossary in that work (ibid., p. 587), she defines God as, "The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence."

Your correspondent's difficulties evidently arise from a misunderstanding of the word "real" as used by Christian Scientists. To a Christian Scientist "real" means created by God. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable, immortal, divine, eternal" (ibid., p. 335). We may appear to suffer from some discordant condition or to go through some distressing ordeal, but none of these experiences are "real" according to the foregoing definition of "reality." They are, therefore, regarded in Christian Science as unreal because they are not created by God, good, and through spiritual understanding of the reality of being they can be overcome or healed.

The teachings of Christian Science do not belittle the crucifixion of Jesus and the resurrection, as your correspondent would suggest; on the contrary, they reveal their tremendous significance to mankind.

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