Editorial March 3, 1973 Issue

Determining Right and Wrong in Man-Woman Relationships

Carl J. Welz

It seems popular now when determining what is right and what is wrong to decide first what we want to do, then work out our standards to justify our behavior. The justification seems to take the form of a so-called higher morality. Something called honesty is supposed to prevail over hypocrisy. People who obey the moral law where marriage relationships are concerned are criticized as deceitful for acting contrary to their desires.

Christian Science exposes this basis for determining right and wrong as worse than godlessness because it assumes God to be in man and then attributes to God the desires and acts of mortal man. Such thinking distorts the idea of God. Christian Science labels it animal magnetism—an appropriate name in view of the hypnotic effect the God-in-man theory seems to have on people who do not recognize what it is and what it does to them.

Animal magnetism argues that we are, after all, material creatures and that God—if there is one—made us that way. If we accept this premise, it leads us from one disappointment to another, always promising that something else or someone else will bring us the joy we are seeking. Lastly, it insists that life is short and we might as well get all the pleasure we can from it while we are here.

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