CHRISTIAN SCIENCE is a most significant name for a body of religious teaching. No mental jugglery is possible with the word "science." Its meaning cannot be so twisted or tortured as to permit credence being given to variant doctrines or mere beliefs. Science means the comprehension or understanding of ascertained truth; hence Christian Science means in its absolute sense the comprehension or understanding of ascertained truth pertaining to Christ.
Comprehension and understanding are the results of mental processes, and are capable of degrees. It is not necessary, therefore, that a person shall have an absolutely complete comprehension or understanding of Christ before calling himself a Christian Scientist. The moment a raw recruit enlists in the army and swears loyalty to his country, he becomes a soldier, even though his movements earn him membership for a time in the awkward squad. The moment a person, weary and sick of finding pain and pleasure through material sense, turns to Christian Science and seeks the way of emergence from sense to Soul, he becomes a Christian Scientist in this sense. His growth from that point will be commensurate with his sincerity and earnestness, with his loyalty and obedience to its teachings.
The enlistment as a Christian Scientist means the acknowledgment of "one supreme and infinite God" and of "His Son, one Christ." The tenets of Christian Science, as given on page 497 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, make this very clear. These tenets are also perfectly plain in requiring Christian Scientists to take "the inspired Word of the Bible as [their] sufficient guide to eternal Life." To acknowledge God and His Son Christ is to recognize them as facts and truths, the knowledge of which must bind us to a loyal and obedient attempt to become and to remain in harmony with them. The Bible teaches us that he who bore the personal name of Jesus of Nazareth was the highest human manifestation of the Messiah or Christ, the divine ideal of God who was through Jesus made comprehensible and understandable to mankind; and to the extent which men, through following the teachings of Jesus, become Christlike, they are saved from all that is unlike Christ, including all forms of sin, sickness, and death.
