It is sometimes said by the critics of Christian Science that it is like Neoplatonism and "Berkeleyism," etc., but these undemonstrable human theories are very different from it, and a patient study of Christian Science enables one to perceive in what way they differ. It can be said without hesitation that the above-named and kindred beliefs are radically different from Christian Science and at polar opposites with it in many things. Because Bishop Berkeley claimed that matter and its forms are the phenomena of mind, it does not follow that his theory is like Christian Science. He and his cothinkers believed that the phenomenon called matter is only an impression produced by divine power on the human mind "by means of invariable rules styled the laws of nature." This would make God the cause of all human ills and calamities, which is contrary to the teaching of Christian Science. Bishop Berkeley therefore failed to comprehend the difference between the divine Mind and its manifestation and the phenomena of the human mind, so called, nor could he offer a single reasonable explanation of such phenomena.
On the other hand, Christian Science satisfactorily solves this whole problem, which has hitherto baffled the scholarship of the ages. The general material thought which believes in the existence of a God, supposes that the human mind has the same perception of the universe, including man, that the divine Mind has, and that the difference is only in the quantity or magnitude and not in the quality of this discernment. Christian Science, however, maintains that the carnal or material beliefs of the human mind, including its sins and diseases, are at enmity with the nature of God, and cannot emanate from Him. The physical senses of the material man, or carnal as Paul has it, do not discern God nor the things of God, for God and His creations must be spiritually discerned.
Christian Science explains this human mind through a right apprehension of the divine Mind. The material knowledge, so called, of the human mind, is not simply different in degree from the divine, but the very opposite in its quality or nature. What we call the human mind has a limited and therefore an ignorant and erroneous perception of the divine intelligence and the works thereof. It has a limited sense of Spirit, and being ignorant thereof, includes in this limited belief about God much that is the opposite of the nature of God. Opposite qualities have a supposed existence only to those who are in ignorance of the truth, but never in Truth itself; for Truth cannot produce things opposite in quality or character—the good tree (Truth) brings forth good fruit; it cannot bring forth evil fruit, therefore it does not contain any element of evil. The spiritual and material are opposite in quality and nature, as the Bible teaches (see Galatians, 5); then they cannot, in the final analysis, both be true, nor in the absolute sense, real.
