AS a general rule men are indebted to their early education, rather than to their conscientious conviction, for their religious beliefs; hence the tenacity with which they often defend untenable positions and illogical deductions, even when proof to the contrary is offered them. Many look with disfavor or discredit upon whatever is not in line with their own views, and, instead of withholding their judgment for an impartial investigation, they are too apt to condemn upon mere rumor or upon their own adverse opinion. When one's judgment of another’s faith is determined by the contrast it presents to his own, it is usually very much biased and correspondingly valueless. And yet upon such inadequate and unjust basis rests all human opposition to new ideas and advanced systems.
This is especially true in the case of Christian Science, concerning whose teaching and practice so many jump to false conclusions, instead of reasoning out its statements and deductions from its own point of view, and examining its achievements without prejudice or antagonism. It is because of ignorance of the subject that some ridicule Christian Science, or treat it with ill-timed wit, or with aggressive and outspoken enmity; or that others, again, would subject it to the analysis of so-called material science to its apparent disadvantage. Doubtless these all believe they correctly apprehend the subject and dispose of it upon its merits, while the truth is they do not catch the first gleam of its real meaning, or interpret rightly a single part of its teaching.
Christian Scientists themselves declare that if they believed all they are sometimes credited with, they would deserve condemnation and reproach; but as a matter of fact their views are radically different from what is often ascribed to them. However much one may disapprove of Christian Science, as he regards it, he can but admit that it produces a beneficent effect, morally and physically, upon its believers and upon others who seek its aid; and that it has in consequence established its usefulness to mankind, a form of usefulness which the world sorely needs and whose benefits all men desire. When it is considered that it harms none, but does much good to many, and that it holds out the hope of final deliverance from evil, it is seen that it were better to examine this subject kindly and rationally, with the desire to understand the truth of its teachings, and to realize the good it contains, rather than to criticize or condemn it from no other reason than that it is contrary to what one has been taught or accustomed to believe.
It may be that some new students, whose zeal outstrips their discretion, talk at random concerning Christian Science, and make statements far in advance of their understanding and experience, and thus give rise to many erroneous impressions of what Christian Science teaches; but it is unfair to base one's judgment upon conclusions drawn from such impressions, without verifying them. All men are not mistaken; and admitting that some irresponsible people may find their way among Christian Scientists, and say and do erratic things, the general personnel of the movement, and their conduct before the world, are such as to command unreserved respect.
Because so many good people—people of culture and refinement, of high business and social standing, as well as those of the humbler walks of life—find a satisfying church home and an effective remedy for their ills in Christian Science,—this, instead of furnishing reason for opposition, should influence others to inquire concerning the fundamental truth which has wrought so much good, and which attracts and holds so many to this teaching. One may walk in ignorance over a gold-mine, and so pay no heed to the treasure beneath his feet; or he may deny that gold can be found there; but when others dig below the surface and find all they need of the precious ore, it is surely folly any longer to deny its existence.
Let us take the question of healing the sick, which has aroused considerable opposition to Christian Science in quarters whence one would naturally expect sympathy and encouragement. Because Christian healing had fallen into general disuse, many believed that it belonged only to the first century, and that it had passed out of human experience beyond the hope or the reasonable expectation of its restoration; but before assuming this position it would be better to consult history in this connection, as well as to reason out one's conclusion from a more logical premise than the existing general lack of faith in God.
It is a matter of general knowledge that the healing of the sick was for several centuries a common practice in the early Christian Church, and this alone should dispose of the popular contention that this healing power was especially vested in Jesus and his disciples and disappeared with them. It is also a matter of history that both before and after the Christian era sickness has been healed through prayer and faith in God; and although these, for the most part, have been isolated instances, they furnish evidence that the healing power of Christianity has ever remained within human reach, and that its general disuse is not the fault of God but of Christians themselves.
If we regard the marvelous healing works of Jesus as the natural outcome of his teachings, or as given in demonstration or proof thereof, it cannot be unreasonable to expect similar results from the students of those teachings, in the proportion that they are understood. Indeed the great Teacher's own words lead one to expect that his works would be repeated by his followers. Now when one fairly considers all these things,—the words and works of our Master, the healing practised by the early Christians, the success of the Christian Science movement, its positive and undoubted healing, its unqualified acceptance of God's omnipotence, its interpretation of Christianity as the revelation of Truth, enabling mankind to work out their salvation from error and evil,—when one considers all these things in the broad spirit of Christian hope and faith, it should not seem unreasonable or inconsistent thoughtfully to compare Christian Science with primitive Christianity, with the willingness to see in it the fulfilment of the Master's promise of "the Comforter," rather than with the desire to prove it in error in order to confirm one's own beliefs.
The simple fact that Christian Science heals as it claims to do, and that it does this in obedience to Scriptural teaching, should prompt a kindly attitude and inquiry; since a more spiritual Christianity and a scientific system of healing must some time be gained to meet the universal need of mankind. Christian Science is healing the sick at our very doors, and it is reforming sinners by the same process; why then should one seek to dissociate this healing effect from Christianity? Can it possibly be true that divine law compels mortals to turn to every conceivable source but God for the removal of their sicknesses and fears? Is there any possible cause, outside of one's own unbelief, for concluding that the healing power of Christianity has been lost, while its redemptive power in the case of sin has been retained?
To do justice to the claims of Christian Science, one must not lose sight of the fact that the attention of mankind was first called to Christianity because of its power to heal, and it is not unreasonable to assume that in order to hold the attention of men it must continue to exercise the same power in the overcoming of human suffering. One cannot well deny that Christianity to-day would gain in glory and strength were it to repeat the healing works of Jesus, were it to make whole the halt and the blind, and lift the sorrow-stricken into peace. To do this would without question increase its influence, multiply its blessings, and waken more universally the tired hope of men. Then why not look for the restoration of these "former things," instead of closing one's eyes to the growing evidences of this restoration, as witnessed in the Christian Science movement, and saying that it cannot be?
Let Christians reason together rather than dispute concerning this great question. Let them consider it on the broad basis of human need, and their acknowledgment of the power of God; on the basis of what Jesus did and taught his followers to do. Meeting together on this common ground of belief, Christians cannot consistently deny the sick the right to rely upon Christ for help to-day as of old, nor will they take from any sufferer the hope that there is help for him in God, in spite of what material beliefs may decide. If it was right for those who have been healed by Christian Science to have been healed thus, if we would not or should not send them back into the suffering from which they have been delivered, then it is right for others to seek and find the same divine help, the same savior from physical as well as moral disease. Let us reason together as Christians, and pray that our darkness be enlightened and our faith strengthened, that we do not fail to recognize and welcome the Christ when revealed to us.
Another phase of Christian Science commonly misunderstood is its teaching regarding the unreality of matter. To human sense the statement that matter is not real seems absurd, but this absurdity vanishes as one intelligently perceives the truth upon which it is based; viz., that God is infinite Mind or Spirit, hence that there is in reality nothing beside Him and His manifestation. This statement declares the divine reality of being, apparent to God, though faintly discerned by human consciousness. Mortals must work up to the realization and demonstration of this truth in all its comprehensiveness, before they can wholly escape from the sense of sin and mortality; hence the statement of the unreality of matter, when understood and utilized, becomes a practical rule in the working out of human salvation, and is a correlative of St. Paul's statement that in God, divine Mind, "we live, and move, and have our being." (See Retrospection and Introspection, p. 128.)
The fact that Christian Scientists themselves are unable as yet to adjust all their habits of life to this teaching, instead of arousing opposition should stimulate others to discover what underlies this seeming contradiction of fact, which affords so much practical comfort and help to Christian Scientists in their struggles to overcome the flesh and its ills. In the ordinary sense of things, matter seems just as real and tangible to them as to others, but they are coming more and more to regard it as only a temporary condition of human belief, and not as in any sense embodying the reality of being; a condition which all mortals must outgrow through spiritualization of thought and life.
Christian Scientists are neither fanatics nor fools. They are well aware how foolish it would be for them to accept the doctrine of the non-existence of matter, unless there were something in this teaching, though not discerned by outsiders, which satisfied their reason as well as their faith, and which brought them satisfactory results in the working out of their problems. If the exponents of an idea were universally ignorant or illiterate there might be some excuse in dismissing their contention with ridicule; but when a sane, intelligent, cultured body of people accept a given teaching in all seriousness, and declare that they find it practically helpful in overcoming evil and disease, it calls for honest inquiry and earnest thought.
When they deny the reality of matter Christian Scientists do not close their eyes to the material phenomena around them, nor attempt to ignore them; but their denial follows as the necessary consequent of their declaration of the allness of God, and because "the only fact of creation" is its "spirituality" (Science and Health, p. 471). It should be readily apprehended that to regard the phenomena of material man and the universe as a temporal sense of things, appearing only to the immature, imperfect human sense of being, and to accept them as the actual truth and substance of creation, are very different. It should also be readily seen that it is possible for one to be in the material world and yet not of it, that because of his lack of spiritual growth and understanding, it is possible and consistent for him to eat and sleep, live in a material house, conduct business, etc., and yet conscientiously believe and declare that materiality, in all its forms, laws, and conditions, is in the scientifically spiritual sense unreal. The Christian Scientist takes the latter position in order to escape the weariness and wickedness of the flesh, and to keep his thought upon the ultimate goal of his faith, viz., spiritual consciousness and immortality.
Although the teaching of Christian Science regarding the belief in matter is contrary to the general belief of the age, it needs only a little unprejudiced reasoning to see that, although it is necessarily at variance with physical sense testimony, it is in accord with Scripture, and that its perfect realization is the desideratum of all Christian effort. Scripture teaches that the material sense of heaven and earth must pass away before "a new heaven and a new earth" can appear; and this confirms the Christian Science teaching, that the spiritual universe is the only real universe, and that the primary and essential facts of being include no matter, sin, nor death. On the basis of truth, it is just as rational and right to declare that there is no matter, as to declare that God is Spirit and infinite; and this declaration is made in Christian Science, not because human thought may now fully perceive the evidence of this truth, but that it may grow toward that perception and experience.
Another point of Christian Science commonly misquoted and misapplied, is that evil and sin are not real. One might reasonably suppose that all who are working and praying for the freedom of mankind from these conditions would welcome rather than oppose this doctrine, confirmed as it is by positive results. Even human experience teaches the wisdom of believing in good in preference to evil, and this alone should prepare honest inquirers to take the Christian side of this question, and to reason it out from God's standpoint rather than from that of mortal man. The difficulty with many is that their reasoning on this subject begins from the wrong end, their beliefs and conclusions being based upon the evidence which the belief itself in evil has brought about; they decide at the outset that evil is an assured fact. If one feels that he must begin at the human end, that is, with the human consciousness of evil, let him do so with a realization of the fact which every experience may furnish, viz., the possibility of evil being resisted and overcome; and from that point let him reason on through the human possibilities of goodness, and the ever increasing dominion over evil which these possibilities availed of would bring, until in thought he reaches the final consummation of Christianity,—the belief of evil wholly destroyed, and God, good, found to be supreme, All. At this point evil would cease, its phenomenal appearance would disappear, and it would become to human recognition what it always was from the beginning,—nothing.
Christian Science begins at the divine end of the question, where God is All, the Alpha and Omega of all reality. From this admitted premise it reaches the scientific self-evident deduction, so significant to mankind, that evil in and of itself is an illusion, nothingness, a supposition of which human belief, to its own sense only, makes a phenomenal something which must eventually submit to spiritual apprehension, the knowledge of God. The position of Christian Science is supported by Scripture, wherein the devil (evil) is represented as deceiving "the whole world," that is, making them believe what is not real; and wherein our Master also refers to a personified sense of evil as "a liar." A little quiet thought along these lines will show that Christian Science is not only in harmony with the Scriptures, but is confirmed in a degree by human experience; and that all that is needed on our part, to see this truth more clearly, is to make it practical in our experience.
The charge sometimes made against Christian Scientists, that because they believe evil to be unreal they can indulge in sin and excuse themselves on that ground, has no foundation either in theory or in practice. Christian Science does not excuse nor palliate wrong-doing in any form or degree. One has but to put himself in the Scienctist's place in this regard to see how impossible it would be for him to commit evil and expect to evade the responsibility and punishment thereof by declaring there is no evil. He would see that to make good this statement there must be individual reformation, the renunciation of sin, and an all-absorbing love of good. Instead of drawing a veil over evil by declaring it unreal, Christian Science exposes its falsity, uncovers its hidden operations, and condemns it in all its forms because it does not partake of the nature of God, hence has no right to be. Some may criticize what they believe to be the Scientist's attitude toward sin; but when aware of the facts, no one could honestly find fault with what his position actually is. The fact, now quite generally admitted, that Christian Science in practice leads sinners to forsake their wickedness, and makes even the best people better, discloses the real influence on mankind of this teaching, and should encourage all Christians to consider this question in the spirit of humility and gratitude rather than in the spirit of destructive criticism.
If the inquirer reasons out these points satisfactorily, so that he gains a glimpse of the real meaning and purpose of Christian Science, he should not seriously misunderstand its teaching regarding the perfectness and spirituality of man; for if he reaches the conclusion that evil and matter are unreal, he must see that these conditions do not enter into the facts of creation, nor into the nature of God's man. God being infinite good, it should be evident to all that His creation embodies only the idea of goodness. It is man's necessity to be perfect, to be the image and likeness of God; if he is not the image and likeness of God, then man as the creation of God does not exist. It is plain that to the physical senses man seems the reverse of the divine image, having a sinful nature and experiencing suffering and death; but instead of accepting this sense as conclusive, would it not be better to lift thought to a higher and more spiritual conception of being? Although man as conceived of materially is sinful and imperfect, is it not Christianly reasonable to believe that, unseen to physical sense, there exists a perfect ideal manhood awaiting recognition by human consciousness, to which ideal manhood it is the duty of Christians to lift themselves?
In his first letter to the Corinthians St. Paul quotes Isaiah as saying, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard [physically], . . . the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." He speaks of these "things" as already existing, although not physically discernible. St. Paul also refers to a time when we shall all come through "the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man;" and St. John declares that "now are we the sons of God." Although this ideal man does "not yet appear." he is referred to as the present truth of being, to be revealed through individual growth in goodness, and not as something yet to be created. Cannot other Christians meet with Christian Scientists at this point, and agree with them that what the apostles mean by "sons of God" and "perfect man" is all that is real and enduring concerning man, that it is the declaration of the eternal truth of man's being, although human consciousness must be purified of all sense of evil before this condition can be wholly realized? Christians are enjoined to lay off "the old man," the fleshly sinful sense, and to put on "the new man," the spiritual, Godlike concept, "created in righteousness and true holiness;" then is he not consistent who believes that this "new man" is his real selfhood now, even as it will be when he has overcome his sense of evil? As one perceives these things he understands what is meant in Christian Science by the perfect man.
It will be seen from the foregoing that, in order to be perfect, man must be spiritual; that is, he must express the nature of God, Spirit; hence Christian Scientists, when declaring the perfection of man, do not hold physical personality in thought. Indeed, it should be plainly evident that one must turn his thought away from a material sense of being altogether in order to discern and demonstrate the spiritual wholeness of man as God's idea, since it is the belief of material manhood which causes and includes all the ills and evils which mortals suffer. The Christian Scientist heals disease on the basis of "perfect God and perfect man" (Science and Health, p. 259), but in realizing the perfection of being he does not think of physical man any more than he thinks of physical God. To say of physical manhood that it is perfect would be to make material sense immortal, a conclusion which is the opposite of Science. The attempt to heal disease by asserting of either a mortal mind or body that it is perfect, is not the practice of Christian Science, but a mortal-mind cure, a belief which would unite Spirit and matter in man and call it the idea of God. The Christian Scientist lifts his thought above materiality, and rests his mental treatment on the truth of man's spiritual being as the child of Spirit, and as this truth is understood it removes the sense of physical discord.
It should not be necessary to say that while the Christian Scientist believes man to be spiritually perfect, he does not believe nor imply that he (the Scientist) as a mortal manifests that perfection, but he aims to hold his thought to the perfect ideal, in order to free himself from the opposite false sense which leads into sin and suffering; and he finds that this method works for his betterment in all that pertains to his welfare. Every one takes practically the same position who resists sin in his thought and overcomes it in his life, though he may not define it in the same positive, absolute way with which the subject is treated in Christian Science.
It is not practicable to consider here all the points of Christian Science which are often misunderstood, but enough has been said to show that an open-minded examination of its teaching, uninfluenced by one's former opinions or education, will dispel many of the erroneous impressions now current regarding this subject, and reveal the fact that Christian Science is reasonable and consistent not only in its worded statements, but in all its detailed application to human needs. The most important and decisive question concerning a teaching which offers so much help to men in their struggles with evil as does Christian Science, is, What effect does it have? Are those who accept it made better or worse? The wonderful moral reformations which result from the practice of this Science, should make one pause in his judgment, and lay aside prejudice or antagonism until he reasons out its statements from the Scientist's point of view. Evil is always unreasonable and inconsistent, wrong to the individual's highest sense of truth and right; but that which results in good, which brings increase of love and harmony to hearts and homes, which makes men purer, healthier, and holier, is its own proof that it is right and true. In its effects upon mankind it has been demonstrated that Christian Science is of God; and all men need its influence in their thought and life.
