Article September 6, 1982 Issue

Sin—not man—is punished

MARIO TOSTO

This may seem hard to believe if you're behind prison bars. Or feeling rejected by family and friends. Or suffering with a painful illness. Yes, it's easy to feel like a target and to think of yourself as an incurable loser. But personalizing punishment only serves to strengthen the illusion that you and God are separated. This, in turn, leads to a sense of hopelessness, which makes reformation and healing more difficult.

Some orthodox theology confirms this bleak view, holding that man must suffer, perhaps indefinitely, because he is by nature a sinner. If we accept suffering as something God sends, or at least allows to happen as His way of punishing our sins or testing our fidelity, we'll be apt to resign ourselves to suffering and even consider it a virtue.

But Christian Science holds a radically different view of God, man, and the universe (and of sin and its penalty), a view that can be proved to be the basis of all hope and salvation. It might be summed up in these statements by Mrs. Eddy in her book Science and Health: "We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness."^{Science and Health, p. 497.} God, the true Mother-Father, and His perfect children are forever inseparable as cause and effect. Because God, divine Love, cares for His creation surely, tenderly, He cannot be at the same time the sender of pain, disease, injury, deformity, or death. This would be contradictory to His very nature, making Him less loving than most human parents.

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