Because the teachings of Christian Science are contrary...

James Phelps—Oshkosh, Wis.

Northwestern

Because the teachings of Christian Science are contrary to human experience, is it wise to reject them? Now, as a matter of fact, theory generally precedes and is in advance of practice. It is always valuable to have a high ideal, even if one fails to realize it perfectly in practice. Surely there can be no harm in accepting the Biblical statements that man is made in God's image and likeness; that he has dominion over all the power of the enemy, and that nothing shall by any means harm him; that if he drinks any deadly thing, it shall not hurt him; that if he believes in Christ he shall never see death.

If God is Spirit, as the Scriptures aver, then surely His image and likeness is spiritual and is not subject to pain, disease, and death. Doubtless Jesus knew that his disciples would not realize perfection for some time, after he admonished them to be perfect even as their Father in heaven was perfect, but that did not hinder him from giving the command and expecting them to achieve perfection as rapidly as possible. In like manner, Mrs. Eddy, while teaching the unreality of matter, pain, disease, sin, and death, on the basis that God, Spirit, made everything that was made and pronounced it very good, never taught her followers to expect that she would not pass from mortal vision as other people do, or that for an indefinite time the belief in these ills would not afflict the human race. However, we may rejoice that as a result of Mrs. Eddy's teaching hundreds of thousands of intelligent men and women bear insistent testimony of relief from sin and disease, pain and fear, while many have been brought back from the very verge of the grave; agnostics have been reclaimed, families reunited, harmony in homes has been restored, consumption and cancer cured.

Did Jesus (whom Christian Scientists acknowledge as the Wayshower) speak and act as though he firmly believed sin and sickness to be real? He said of the woman, who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, "Satan hath bound her." At another place he said: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

Now these passages, taken in connection with Jesus' own statement, that he came not to destroy, but to fulfil the law; and John's declaration that "the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil," give ample justification for the conclusion that Jesus did not regard sin and sickness as real. Had Jesus regarded sin and sickness as real, he would have shared the beliefs of those about him and would, therefore, have been as helpless as they were in the presence of leprosy, paralysis, blindness, etc. Had he believed in the reality of inharmony and matter, it would have been mockery for him to have said to his storm-tossed and fear-stricken students: "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" It would also, under these circumstances, have been impossible for him to pass through closed doors.

The New Testament, as I read it, is full of declarations of the unreality of death to the true Christian. I will refer to only a few: (John viii. 51) "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." (Rom. viii. 2) "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (I Cor. xv. 26) "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (II Tim. i. 10) "Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

If Christian Science is the truth, it follows as a necessary consequent that anything which disagrees with it must be error. All Christian Scientists believe with other Christians that Christ Jesus taught the whole truth and that he knew more about God, man, and the universe, about causation, law, and effect, than any man or woman before or since; and that only in so far as the teachings of Christian Science agree with his teachings, will they be abiding and effective. Jesus likened the truth to leaven in meal. This leaven has been and is at work, and will continue to work till all erroneous concepts, all human errors, are destroyed, and the facts become apparent to all that God is All-in-all; that God is perfect and divine Mind, and all that really exists must be His manifestation. It is clear that the only manifestation Mind can have is thought; but thought is not intangible to the real man (spiritual consciousness), but tangible, real, harmonious, and eternal.

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