The Bible teaches that man was made good, that everything which God created was good, and that there was nothing which He did not create; that sin, disease, and all other ills are illusions, the outcome of a false sense; that Christ Jesus came to save us by showing us how to rise above these illusions, and that he promised that those who believed on him should heal as he had healed.
With regard to the unreality of sin and death, Christian Science teaches emphatically and proves that these things are not true; further, that our belief in them is all the reality they can ever have.
The Christian Scientist looks beyond the human mind to the divine Mind, God,—the Principle of man's being,—and so finds nothing which may not be trusted to the care of the creator of the universe.
In the nineteen centuries which have elapsed since the commencement of the Christian era, almost innumerable phases of what is termed Christian thought have been expressed in as many innumerable dogmas, each of which has been the orthodox view just so long as popular opinion has supported it.
Theology has for so long been concerned in devising creeds to bring the teaching of the Bible within the range of human understanding, in explanations and interpretations intended to satisfy the human mind and to transgress as little as possible its materialistic limitations and methods, that the reversal of this process demanded by Christian Science is often at first a little startling and disconcerting.
IN
the fourth chapter of John is given this testimony of the Samaritan woman respecting Christ Jesus: "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did : is not this the Christ?
FOR
long centuries mortal man has been circling around the outskirts of truth, with one hand reaching for the spiritual, and with the other grasping at matter for relief and happiness.
