SOME of its hasty critics, without giving the subject proper attention, find fault with Christian Science because in its scientific analysis of the human problem it treats the conditions known as matter and evil as negative quantities. A respectful investigation would reveal that Christian Science does not differ in this method from the sciences of music and mathematics. It is evident that Science cannot be formulated upon a basis of contradictions. Whatever appears to the students of either of the sciences referred to, in the course of their work, which does not proceed from its fundamental and accepted law, or from the practice of its rules, is set aside as an error. The presence of these errors is universally regarded as a mistake. They appear through ignorance, and disappear when truth is more clearly understood, ‹ a fact that establishes their illusive nature.

Because of its scientific character Christian Science also requires a fixed standard for the guidance of its students, and by which they may work at their problems intelligently. It has the same right and the same reason to discriminate between realities and unrealities, between truth and error, and to give them their proper value and significance, that the science of music has to decide between harmonious and discordant notes, or the science of mathematics to declare what is the right and the wrong relation of numbers. The Science of being, wherefrom mortals must learn the truths of health, goodness, and spirituality, should not give more reality to error than do these.

The sole beneficent purpose of any science is to lead mortals out of error, not to leave them in it. To this end they are instructed to reject all evidence that contradicts, or that would impair if accepted, the integrity of its standard. The musical student, for instance, is taught not to be deceived into accepting a discordant note for the correct one, though no less audibly apparent to the material sense of hearing. Christian Science distinguishes between good and evil, between spirituality and materiality, as the true and the false in human experience, but it does not deny that evil and material conditions seem real to the sense that takes no cognizance of God. It does not, however, accept appearances for reality, otherwise it would not be Science. In Christian Science God is defined as Love, the absolute, divine Principle of all real being, the infinite creator, lawgiver, intelligence, substance, and Life. How, then, can it define as a reality aught that in its nature and influence is contrary to God; that does not acknowledge the Divine control, and that claims another intelligence and creator? What scientific alternative has it but to designate all such conditions as errors, and to repudiate them accordingly?

Christian Scientists deny the reality of evil and discordant conditions because they have no place in the spiritual, Godlike understanding of being, not because they have already overcome their own sense of them. They have learned this much, that freedom from evil must come through knowing the truth about it, and hence they declare its falsity. They do this from a scientific basis, not from the basis of their present state of consciousness. They do not expect discord to disappear simply because of their denials, but because of their knowledge of the fact that evil is divinely untrue. Students of the sciences also work to overcome errors that are apparent to their unenlightened sense, and they do this because they know that error is the opposite and not the correlative of truth. Their insistence upon the absolute correctness of the Principle by which they work is a practical denial of all claims and conditions which do not harmonize therewith.

It is thus seen that the practice of denying seeming realities is not confined to Christian Scientists; every one does it more or less. The very word itself indicates the apparent presence of conditions that are false, and hence the need of this and similar words to express the act of repudiation. Even our critics must admit that an untruth may gain such credence and circulation as to wreck the happiness of many individuals and the peace and integrity of their homes. Would it, then, be absurd for one who had learned the truth to deny this lie simply because the dreadful consequences that had resulted seemed so real? Even though he were not generally believed and could not hope to redeem at once the whole situation, would he not rightly persist in his denials, despite contrary evidence, because he knew the cause thereof to be a lie? We do not deny lies because they are not believed, but because they are believed by those ignorant of the facts, and so cause mischief which a knowledge of the truth would avoid. Likewise Christian Science denies evil because it is believed when it ought not to be.

Milton begins his "Paradise Lost" with the statement that mortal man's first act of disobedience was the cause of human woe; and this disobedience resulted from believing a lie. The allegory of Eden plainly teaches that the serpent lied to Eve when he told her she might know evil and yet not die. If this lie had not been believed, if it had been denied at the first presentation, and in every succeeding instance, when and where could evil and suffering have entered human experience or consciousness? The direful results of accepting the satanic suggestion, seen in the long continuance of human suffering and sorrow, do not add one iota of truth to its original falsity. Wherein, therefore, is Christian Science at fault, logically or scientifically, in denying the truthfulness of that which in the beginning was so bad, so contrary to the nature of divine Truth, that it should never have been believed?

Through the discovery and demonstration of Christian Science has been proved the unreality, in the true scientific sense, of aught besides God, divine Mind; and thus the mask of an assumed reality has been removed from the claim that there is an evil and material state of being. The belief in matter, including as it does the whole category of human ills, sums up the mortal beliefs that God, infinite Spirit, is not the whole of being. In its every phase it contends for the existence and operation of another creator and law than God, a contention which Christian Science, from the very necessity of its Christian character, denies. To do otherwise would be to abandon the problem of man's origin and destiny, and all that concerns human welfare, as having neither Principle nor Science whereby mortals may work out their salvation. Accepting opposites as realities ultimates in confusion which is not the finale of Science.

The reverse of materiality is spirituality, a state of consciousness that is without evil, that includes and manifests every quality of goodness, and is therefore defined in Christian Science as the only reality of being. The Christian Scientist's denial of disease and sin, given in opposition to material evidence, rests on this basis. Critics who view such a process as verging on the absurd should begin their arguments at the alleged starting-point of human evil, and find whether Satan was right in commending a knowledge of evil to Adam and Eve, and whether God was wrong in warning them against it. The admission of evil leads to a knowledge of it, while to deny it understandingly, because of the infinitude of good, is to begin its unknowing. What is there un-Scriptural, un-Christian, or unscientific in the highest sense, in such a course?

To retrace their way out of conditions into which a deceived sense has taken them, mortals must begin to be undeceived; that is, begin to reverse their belief in that which has deceived them, stop admitting the claims of that which revelation and enlightened reason declare to be untrue. Such a process is scientific because it is the working out of a rule based on unchanging Principle, and its object is the attainment of a perfect knowledge of Truth, the acme of all science. Christian Scientists do deny the reality of physical discords, as well as all sorrow and misfortune, not because they do not seem as real to their sense as to others, but because the only way out of them is the way of their unreality. They deny the reality of evil because the accepted truth of God's infinitude gives them no logical grounds for believing in it.

The falsity of the belief that there is an opposite to God and His creation is a rule of Christian Science by which its students heal disease and the love of sin. If such results did not follow these scientific denials, then our critics would indeed have a broad foundation for objections; but what reasonable basis have they before the accumulating signs that do follow this method? What weight have their objections when set over against the deliverance of thousands of their fellow-mortals from their enslavement to the various forms of sin, and from the pangs of hopeless disease, by the very method which the wisdom of this world sneers at as absurd?

To a world writhing in the torments of its belief that matter and evil are real and that they rule mankind, Mrs. Eddy gave the message of Christian Science. That both she and her system should be misunderstood and resisted by many is not strange when we consider how material is human thought in its concept of man, and how slowly it swings round to the spiritual apprehension of being. Mortals argue that because effects seem real the cause itself must be real, ‹ a form of logic that human experience disproves. Usually no one takes exception to the refutation of a lie when it is discovered, no matter what havoc it has wrought nor how long it has passed for truth. Then wherefore should exception be taken to Christian Science or its Discoverer for taking the same stand regarding the cause of human suffering and designating it a lie that not only deceived our first parents in Eden but all who have since believed it? If Adam and Eve believed a lie to their undoing, so do mortals to-day who believe as they did and accept another creator and Life than God.

The "last Adam," the divine Christ, came to "restore all things;" and hence the true operation of Christianity must be the reverse of the process begun in Eden, for not otherwise can it restore the sense of man's perfection and purity. Christianity is the reverse of evil and sensuality. To follow Christ, then, is to reverse the way of the flesh; that is, to go in opposition to it, or in other words deny it. Denial signifies reversal, and vice versa. The cry "back to Christ" should mean the turning of our backs upon all that is un-Christlike or unspiritual. When a Christian Scientist, on the basis of God's perfection, denies pain or anger, ‹ any of the myriad forms of discord, ‹ he is reversing the case in his own thought, so that the harmony of God's creation may take the place claimed by evil. By no other method can he restore his consciousness of perfect man. God is not dishonored by such an act, notwithstanding that the correctness of human knowledge may be impugned thereby. The closest scrutiny reveals nothing unscientific about this process, the rejection of material-sense evidence being necessarily incidental thereto. Expecting to realize the saving and spiritualizing influence of Christianity while admitting all that pertains to evil and matter, must be futile. Denying the evidence of the senses may be contrary to human education and belief, but it is in strict accord with the First Commandment and the life of Jesus Christ.

The assumption that the things of material sense constitute the reality of man's being, and that matter, independent of God, holds the key to human health and life, is the basis wherefrom its critics have attacked Christian Science; yet how could they expect Christianity to consistently conform to such materialistic philosophy, and then repeat the works of its Founder, who went contrary to it? Upon this same basis evil paraded in the guise of a serpent and despoiled Eden of its purity and blessedness. Those who turn a deaf ear to Christian Science, rejecting its proffered hand and denying the spiritual truths upon which it rests, are in much the same position as those who have believed a lie so long as to unwittingly turn from the truth when it is presented to them, even though it is being demonstrated in their midst.

Back