Editorial March 20, 1965 Issue

Christian Science and Natural Science

Carl J. Welz

Christian Science teaches that there is one infinite Principle, divine Mind, which is All. This fact must eventually have a decided effect upon the studies and methods employed by natural scientists. The allness of Mind implies that all real phenomena are the effect of this Mind, and they are spiritual. But it also implies that matter is the manifestation of Mind's supposed opposite, mortal mind. While the study of material phenomena furthers human progress, the result of this study brings mankind ever closer to the illusive nature of matter.

The natural scientist may wonder how a religion which teaches that reality is spiritual could have any good effect on the study of matter. First of all, one who is engaged in observing matter may learn from Christian Science that the effects he observes are directly linked to human thought. He cannot observe matter fully without taking this into account. This is not to imply that an individual by mentally willing it can change the behavior of matter; but it does mean that an individual, by understanding the source of true thought, can identify himself with that source as its idea and thereby demonstrate Mind's power over mortal mind—the power of the one Mind, God, over the beliefs of all the mortals in the universe.

The natural scientist may insist that all this is metaphysics and that by definition his scientific study has nothing whatever to do with mind or the thoughts it produces. But what would be thought of an individual studying the composition of water who insisted that any mention of oxygen in connection with water is unscientific because oxygen is a gas and water is a liquid? The more knowledgeable investigator knows that water is made up of a combination of oxygen with hydrogen.

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