Article October 29, 1949 Issue

AN ESSENTIAL CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

EMMA EASTON NEWMAN

There are many Christian doctrines which have been practiced through the centuries by Christians, whatever their faith. Many of these have been unselfed even to the extent of laying down their human sense of life for another or for a cause. In the degree that they have understood and practiced the Master's teachings, they have been merciful, humble, peaceful, honest, and courageous. But there is an essential Christian doctrine which Christian Scientists alone are pledged to demonstrate in daily living and without which there is no basis for the accomplishment of spiritual healing, healing founded not on blind faith or human will power, but on the understanding of the all-power and ever-presence of Spirit and the nothingness of matter. This doctrine of the nothingness of matter, which Christian Scientists alone have undertaken to prove, was first enunciated by the Discoverer of the Science of the Christ, Mary Baker Eddy, who restored to mankind the ability to demonstrate over matter's validity. She writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 454), "That evil or matter has neither intelligence nor power, is the doctrine of absolute Christian Science, and this is the great truth which strips all disguise from error."

During the centuries following the obscuration of the ability to heal disease by purely spiritual means as taught by Christ Jesus, certain deep thinkers occasionally almost pierced the veil that hid from view the Christ, with its healing, restoring power. But they failed because they did not see that the nothingness of matter is the corollary of the allness of Spirit, God. Christ Jesus, the Founder of Christianity, constantly set aside the notion that matter could be law-ordained and law-governed or have any real existence. He said (Mark 13:31), "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away." Here is a definite statement of the unreality of that which is humanly visible and the enduring nature of the Word of God. By immediately healing insidious diseases, by producing a chemical change whereby water became wine, by calming a tempest, and by feeding a multitude through the increase of food in a way impossible on the basis of limited material belief, the Master proved that matter did not enter into his calculations. He advised in the picturesque speech of the Orient (Matt. 6: 19-21), "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." In this admonition to cultivate a sense of security in heaven, or harmony, the ephemeral nature of matter and its insecurity are made plain.

The fact of matter's nothingness, which Jesus constantly demonstrated, early became obscured by what he called "the prince of this world" (John 12:31). This chief delusion of so-called material existence—the belief in substance matter—so adulterated mankind's understanding of Christianity after the Master's ascension that the healing art soon became lost, except in isolated instances, and human misery increased rather than decreased.

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