Christian Science presents points of disagreement with...

Samuel Greenwood—Victoria, B. C., Canada

The Colonist

Christian Science presents points of disagreement with what has been called orthodox religion, and also with what might be called orthodox philosophy. Mrs. Eddy made no attempt to reconcile her interpretation of Scriptural teaching with prevailing theories and doctrines; and although Christian Science was not stated as something new, in the sense that the truth about God has always existed, it was so hopelessly different from the religious thought of the age that it was necessary to establish a new organization through which to present its teachings and their demonstration.

Christian Science is not "disruptive" either in purpose or in practice, except as it is successful in overcoming evil. The Christian Science church was organized, not for the sake of adding a new denomination to Christendom, but—since the older churches would not receive it—for the sake of religious freedom. Christian Science is not inimical to anything that is good and useful, or that is helping human beings to live better lives, by whatever name it may be called.

Accepting the Scriptural declaration that God is the only creator, Christian Science teaches most unequivocally that evil has no place in His creation and is not a quality pertaining to His children, but is only humanly supposed, accepted, and obeyed. Satan is referred to in Scripture as a deceiver, which, given its impersonal definition, would mean that evil is a deception. Jesus saw it, not as the truth, but as a lie, and he destroyed it as that which has no right to exist. Even the laws of our land teach that men should not make evil so real as to obey it, that is, give it power over them. The argument of a correspondent, that because Christian Science teaches the unreality of evil, mortals have no need of a savior, is no more logical than to assume that because there is no truth or reality in mistakes about mathematics, mortals have no need of schools in which to be taught the correct use of numbers.

The fact that the Christian Science movement exists for the sole purpose of helping humanity to overcome evil, shows that it does not deny the presence of sin as a state of error in human consciousness. But error, as every one knows, cannot be corrected by believing it to be real, but by an understanding of the truth, and this is all that differentiates Christian Science from other methods of dealing with sin. The question is one that calls not for argument but for an efficient remedy.

The charge that Christian Science is pantheism because it teaches the infinity of Spirit, disproves itself, for it is self-evident that the infinite cannot be contained. The New Standard dictionary gives "Mind" as one of the definitions of God, and there can be nothing greater than infinite Mind. The argument that God exists in nature would make God less than nature, less than His own expression. In Christian Science matter is regarded as but a temporary phenomenon of human thought, as that which appears because of human ignorance of the real nature of God as Spirit or Mind, but which will disappear as this ignorance is overcome.

While the Bible teaches that "God created the heaven and the earth," it also teaches that what is seen as a material heaven and earth is to pass away, and that there is to be "a new heaven and a new earth." We are also taught that "whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever;" hence the logical conclusion that the real universe is not that which is to pass away, but that which is to appear as "new," that is, new to human apprehension. If the present sense of heaven and earth as consisting of matter were the reality of God's creation, it would not need to pass away, nor would the new sense of heaven and earth as spiritual need to appear. The passing away of matter as a false sense would not rob creation of its beauty and joy, but would rather unfold the beauty and joy of being everlasting, and not, as now humanly conceived, subject to decay.

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