CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22150, 2 January 1934, Page 15

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE A SCIENTIFIC TEXT BOOK A question which occupies the thought of a great many people is “Are the teachings of the Bible of practical application in everyday living, and should not the practice of them give immunity from disease and evil?” An opportunity was given the people of Dunedin of hearing a free lecture in the Concert Cham* her of the Town Hall on Sunday afternoon, the lecturer being Mr William Duncan Kilpatrick, C. 5.8., a member of the Board of Lectureship of the First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts. Mr Kilpatrick said that Christian Science taught that the Bible was a scientific text book, and the teachings contained therein were just as applicable to-day as they were 1900 years ago. In her various works on the subject, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, had included many wide and far-reaching predictions. History had proved and was constantly proving not only the verity of these predictions but the further fact that they evidenced a keen spiritual faculty, vision, and foresight. In her book entitled “ Pulpit and Press,” Mrs Eddy made this statement: “If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to truth, 1 predict that in the twontieh century every Christian church in our land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in His name. Christ will give to Christianity IDs new name, and Christendom 'will be classilied as Christian Scientists.” . This prediction was made relatively a short time ago. Very recently, according to reports appearing in the press of the country, one of the large Protestant church denominations in the United States, at its regular, general convention, was presented with a report submitted by a joint committee composed of bishops and deputies of that organisation, after six years of careful study and investigation'on the part of the committee, which report found as follows; — 1. That Christian healing has passed beyond the stage of experiment and its value cannot he questioned. - . . 2. That throughout the world spiritual healing is no longer the hope of a few, but the belief and practice of a large and rapidly increasing number of persons. 3. That such healing is an experience of mankind that can no longer be questioned. , 4. That while faith in any supposed remedy produces some_ effect, vital faith in God, aa revealed in Christ, is followed by results which arc more sure, more lasting, and of a more evidently

spiritual character. That report was signed and submitted not only by bishops and deputies of the church, but by some of the leading physicians and surgeons of the United States. . ~ , “The foundation of the entire revelation which Mrs Eddy has given to humanity in Christian Science,” said Mr Kilpatrick, “ is the clear. concept of Cod and man which she gained through her ceaseless and prayerlul search of the Scriptures. Therefore it is to the Scriptures we all must go if we would Enow the true God revealed in Christian Science. By way of deduction, let us see if we cannot come to a clear concept of God. In the first chapter of Genesis we read this: ‘And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; . . • and Cod saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.’ Here we find man a perfect image of God, pure, holy, spiritual, and upright. “Now, turning to the very next chapter of Genesis, just six verses farther along in the Bible, we read this: But there went up a mist, from -the earth, ' . and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’ Here we have a second account of the creation of man diametrically opposed to the first account in the first chapter of Genesis just six short verses removed.- Then, going on a little farther, .the third chapter of Genesis has this to say about this man made from the dust of the ground, this-man who goes by the name of Adam, this man of flesh and blood and bones: ■ And unto Adam He [the Lord God] said . . . cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow eh alt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; . . . in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou re-; turn.’ “Now there must be something wrong somewhere. What do you suppose has become of the dominion, the power, the goodlier, the purity, and the holiness with which God endowed man before the mist arose? Here we have clearly two distinct and opposing statements about man. One is that man is good, pure, holy, and spiritual, has dominion over everything, is created of God, and is like God. The other is that he is a helpless, defenceless, powerless creature, made of plain everyday dust from no particular pattern whatever. The only thing in the Bible that separates these two differing accounts of man’s creation is the ‘ mist.’ No mention is made of the man created in the image and likeness of God as having sinned and fallen, "or. as having been changed in any way. There comes the mist, and then comes the account of the creation of man as about the most helpless and miserable creature one could imagine. ' “ Which one of these two creations, or men, described in the Bible as having been created by God, is like God ? “ If we can determine which one of these two *men is like God, we can determine what God is like. The Bible from beginning to end is replete with answers to this query. Isaiah, for instance, having knowledge, evidently, ot this account of creation which depicts man as made from dust and as having had the breath of life breathed into his nostrils, writes: —‘Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of ? ’ Job, commenting on this same man, this Adam man, this man of the dust of the ground, says: ‘Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continneth not. . . . For there is hope of a, tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. . . . But man dieth, and wasteth away.’ Jesus said, ‘The flesh [that is, the material man] profiteth nothing.’ We are not, then, loft long in doubt as to what the writers in the Bible think about this dust man—this man of flesh and blood and bones—this Adam man. “ Of the man described in the farst chapter of Genesis, made in the image and likeness of God and having dominion over all the earth, the Psalmist wrote: * For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.' Some difference here between the man made in the image and likeness of God anfi the man made of the dust of tlie ground, who is depicted as a miserable, grovelling, helpless creatine! If we are to put any confidence at all in the Bible we are bound to the conclusion that this man of flesh and blood and bones, this Adam man, is not the man of God’s creating, and that, therefore, mortal, material man docs not represent Gqd. We are bound to the further conclusion that the man spoken of in the first chapter of Genesis, who is depicted as good and as having dominion over all the earth, is like God. So, if we have done nothing else from this course of reasoning, we have found that God is in no wise similar to that which you and 1 have been wont to call material man. And thus, by the process of elimination, we have abolished completely any sense of God as a humanly circumscribed personality. “ Now. to face about in our reasoning: Jesus described God as Spirit, which, of course, has nothing to do in any way with what may be termed matter or the physical. Spirit signifies infinite, filling

all space, ever present, everywhere, here and now. Jesus also referred to Cod as good; not as a good God, but as good itself. Goodness is what? Mental, ot course. Goodness is not and never can bo a quality of matter. It must he mental. St. Paul refers, ou several occasions, to the ‘ mind of the Lord,’ or the ‘mind . . . which was also in Christ Jesus,’ pointing out that the animating Principle or God of Jesus the Christ was Mind, and that this Mind is the true God. “Now, there is no equivocation whatever about Jesus’ statement that Cod is a spirit. No one could misunderstand that. There ig no question whatever about St. John’s statement that Cod is Love. No one would deny that love is something expressed in thought, word, and deed. If, therefore, God is something expressed in the consciousness ot man, is it not clear that the God of man must also be the Mind of man? And if thig conclusion is a logical one then is it not clear that man. the image and likeness of God, which the Book of Genesis describes as good and as having dominion over all the earth, is mental or spiritual, and not physical?”