There is no Christian belief which is more universally entertained than that in the divine illumination and impulsion of the Scripture writers, and this belief has begotten a prevailing mental attitude of reverence toward the Bible, a sense of its uniqueness, its value, and its authority. Nevertheless, inquiry as to just what is meant by the declaration that the Bible is an inspired book would disclose much indefiniteness if not contradiction in the views held, and some of these involve such vital issues as render the subject worthy of a consideration it has never received at the hands of the great body of Christian people. To illustrate: The belief that its authors were simply amanuenses, that every sentence and word was indited by the divine intelligence, has begotten such gigantic ill results that a distinguished minister has been led to name it the mother of most of the sins and abominations of history. With respect to this, as to many another vital matter, Christian Science is mightily influencing religious thought for good in standing for a demonstrably scientific faith.
It can but be admitted that it is quite possible to find proof texts in the Bible which seem to support ignoble, not to say immoral, teaching and practices, such as injustice, cruelty, polygamy, slavery, war, etc.; and so long as Christian people maintain that these statements are a part of "the word of God," so long, inevitably, will Deity be dishonored in the judgment of logical thinkers. When, however, it is understood in Christian Science that the light of Truth is obscured in some degree in the instance of even the purest, most aspiring human consciousness, the apparent contradictions and unidealities found in the Scriptures are fully accounted for and rendered innocuous. The freedom of the individual to follow the highest sense of truth he has, is the palladium of Protestantism, and it can never be given up; but the unnumbered sectarian divisions to which it has led, as the result of the belief in verbal inspiration, has always been one of the saddest facts of Christian history.
The only remedy for this ill is that which Christ Jesus provided, and which Christian Scientists are standing for today, namely, the scientific test of truth. It is manifest that the divine element of Scripture statement is eternally true and demonstrable, and if all Christians had honored and earnestly sought to obey the Master's command to his disciples that they "heal the sick," the human sense element in the Bible would have been recognized, its spiritual truths demonstrated, and the bulk of the strife which has attended Christian history would have been forestalled and interdicted. The spiritual interpretation of the Bible, in harmony with the teaching of the Master respecting the nature of God, divine Mind, and man's relation thereto, which Christian Science inculcates, opens the one way of escape from the confusion and contradictions of Christian belief, and brings unity and peace where division has so long reigned.
