SALVATION has rarely been regarded as a scientific process. On the contrary, during the last century, which claims to be the most scientific in history, the belief was at one time widespread that science had struck a death-blow at religion, and thus rendered the salvation of mankind largely problematical. In the world-thought, approaches to salvation have been attempted through so-called science. Many have held, for example, that the inebriate could be released from his besetting vice by means of various medical discoveries; but had what is called medical science released the victim from this particular chain of bondage, he might still be a long, long way from salvation, even in the usually accepted sense of that word. Again, it has been held that children in the schools might be so thoroughly and scientifically instructed, according to medical standards, that through much knowledge of the effects of evil, they would be saved from certain forms of impurity. But has not this method proved worse than futile, even according to many eminent physicians and psychologists? And, moreover, the children might still bear false witness, steal, covet,—in short, be far from salvation.
Though various material methods and theories have been tried to bring about reforms, complete salvation has neither been attempted nor apprehended as possible through material science. It has been left, almost universally, to the realm of religious experience, wherein it was held to be quite divorced from science; for while theology—the expression of religion through the churches—in its original interpretation meant the science of God, not only has it failed to make the salvation of mankind scientifically demonstrable, but, according to one of its highest authorities, it quite lost its original import and became merely an intellectual statement of religion. Both religion and science, as separate agents, have earnestly sought to cooperate in their redemptive mission, one through the well-being of a mortal's "body;" the other, through the welfare of his "soul." The old Adam still stands, or, rather, continues to fall; and this supposititious fallen mortal is the original cause of the divorcement of science from religion, which began as far back as the second chapter of Genesis. It is usually believed that mortals must be saved; and the Christian world has turned to Christ Jesus as the means; but after the first two or three centuries of his influence, the Christ as the way of salvation was to a large extent lost sight of until our own time.
With the discovery and founding of Christian Science by Mary Baker Eddy, the salvation of mankind is now coming to be regarded as a thoroughly scientific process, because a truly religious one, accomplished, not through blind faith in the name of Christ Jesus, but by actual demonstration of the Christ, the spiritual idea, as the Way. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." It was revealed to Mrs. Eddy that the theology of Jesus was indeed the Science of God, therefore the only Science, because inclusive of all truth; and his religion was to apply this Science to every human condition. He acknowledged no other creator, or Father; no other cause, or Principle; no other effect, substance, law, but that which is of God, Spirit, Mind.
This knowledge of Mind as divine Principle, this revelation of divine Science, was that "authority," and by it Jesus swept away the entire tissue of so-called material law. Where was gravitation when he walked the waves as though they were meadows? What became of matter in his method of increasing the number of loaves and fishes? What befell the decree of medical law when he sent the lepers, cleansed and rejoicing, into the very temple? Of what avail did the law of sin prove in the Magdalen's transformation? And where was the power of "the last enemy" when that cry commenced to ring down the ages, "Lazarus, come forth"? In ceasing rightly to apprehend and emulate the works of Jesus, the world removed itself far from his theology.
When Mrs. Eddy found that these so-called miraculous works did not mean supernatural suspension of law, but were scientific proofs of the continuous, inevitable working of the one and only spiritual law, she knew this great truth must be demonstrated to her own age, not merely stated doctrinally, in order to make possible the salvation of mankind. She, therefore, applied her discovery in one test after another of spiritual healing, until the proofs of its divine Principle accumulated with as much certainty and method as problems may be solved in mathematics. Thus she knew and proved that the theology or religion of Jesus was the Science of God, and she named her discovery Christian Science. Later, she presented to the world a clear statement of divine Science in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The theology stated therein is to-day Christianly and scientifically accomplishing the salvation of the race.
Jesus declared, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Here, surely, is complete salvation,—to lay hold on eternal life through divine Science, the knowledge of God, the same understanding as was possessed by Christ Jesus, the Way-shower. To know God as Christ Jesus knew Him is to know Him as the one God, Spirit, Mind; and to know only Spirit, the one Mind, makes impossible the acceptance of a belief in intelligent, creative matter, a knowledge of evil. Here we come back to so-called fallen Adam, and we make the startling discovery that he cannot be saved, but must be replaced by spiritual man, through the religion that is Science, and as we attain to the theology of Jesus, the knowledge of the only true God.
Just as human records have been scientifically scrutinized, and one character tested and found true to the laws of historicity, and another, by the same test, pronounced legendary, so the revelation of divine Science and her demonstration of it proved to Mrs. Eddy that the first record of man, spiritually created in the image and likeness of the sole creator, God, was reality,—a premise which bore every scientific test,— and that the second account was a myth, for it had no claim as fact when subjected to the test of divine Principle, the one creative Mind, incapable of creating its own unlikeness, its very opposite,—matter. The account of Spirit breathing into matter and forming a creature capable of falling away from divine Principle, Life, good, and of sinning, being accursed, and dying, was pantheism, impure and complex. In the divine logic of Science, Mrs. Eddy realized the account to be but the attempt of the material lie, or myth, to reverse every statement of the spiritual idea, the Christ, Truth. It was the basic claim of idolatry to break the First Commandment, and to set up many strange gods and many minds. Many a repentant sufferer, who has come to know the nothingness of all material hopes and means, has turned to Mrs. Eddy's definition of Adam, in the Glossary of the Christian Science textbook (Science and Health, p. 579), and by the light of it has taken his first sure step toward salvation.
The Christian Science concept of salvation is profoundly searching, because it is Christianly scientific. It does not mean merely the releasing of mankind from sin and its penalties; it aims at nothing less than the destruction of all belief in evil, through proof of its unreality—the Christ proof, which establishes the allness of God, good. It is this which gives Christian Science its power to heal when all else has failed. Physicians and psychologists have declared that frequent rehearsal of one's woes to another, constantly seeking and finding human sympathy, is weakening in the extreme. Just so, many wretched ones have found that frequent acknowledgment of sin and pleading for forgiveness with an "unknown God," more or less human, has not brought redemption, or more than temporary relief. When such have turned to the Science of salvation, they have found divine Principle— infinite, immutable, universal, unerring, adjusting all true experience in the unbroken harmony of complete righteousness.
Christ Jesus came to fulfill the law of Love; and Christian Science demonstrates to the truly repentant that Love's law condemns only false material beliefs, the superstitions of sense, ever at enmity against the blessed verities of Spirit; and they who were well-nigh overwhelmed and spent have found sure refuge. The means by which it is attained, and its realization, are completely expressed in Mrs. Eddy's spiritual interpretation of the ark, as given in Science and Health (p. 581): "Safety; the idea, or reflection, of Truth, proved to be as immortal as its Principle; the understanding of Spirit, destroying belief in matter. God and man coexistent and eternal; Science showing that the spiritual realities of all things are created by Him and exist forever. The ark indicates temptation overcome and followed by exaltation."
