Valid Objections to So-called Christian Science/Chapter 2
Let us see. According to the chief apostle of this cult, the central truth around which the whole system revolves, is the principle that the only real thing which exists in the whole universe is mind or spirit. Everything objective is an illusion. Matter is nowhere really present as an actual substance. Material phenomena, so called, have no being save as projections of the mind. There is no world outside of consciousness. Everything we see is merely the product of our thought. External agencies are imaginary, not real. The earth, as it is known to you and me, dies and actually passes away, when we "shuffle off this mortal coil"; for it never has been, save as a conception mirrored in the mind. Hence, things as concrete are unthinkable. The properties of matter are non-existent. Weight and heat and cold, affinity, attraction and repulsion, length and breadth, bulk and size, quality and quantity, as attributes of a created substance external to consciousness, are an impossibility. Pleasure and pain, then, as the result of anything exterior to the mind, are simply not. There is no such thing as physical disease, defect, or shortcoming. Imperfection, as we suppose we see it in Nature and man, manifested to the outward senses, is contrary to reason. It is defective thought on our part that makes this illusory image. Everything is perfect; nothing is wrong or out of gear—we simply imagine it so. Sin, actively considered, is defective thought—not a moral and physical action or state, limited in time and space. It is a mere phantasma, that can be dissipated by simply conceiving that it is non-existent.
And thus, through the whole category, we find the same intangible, indefinite, and nebulous optimism which takes account of no obligation to things objective, save to ignore them, and puts all realities alone in the realm of the subjective consciousness.
But this consciousness, as philosophers know, does not exist or come into development until an adequate series of impressions from tangible objects without have become recorded in sensation and retained in memory; nor is thought possible without an objective something on which to exercise it.
Now, all this system is as far from the ideas which underlie the teachings of Jesus as is the orbit of the earth from the furthest fixed star. It only accounts for half of the world, for half of man, and involves itself in every contradiction and absurdity. Furthermore, the belief in it is a bar to all progress, to all incentive for physical and energetic action. It superinduces a lazy and contented calm which allows the world and all things in it to drift.
Christ directed men to recognize the reality of pain and sin, and to take measures with His help to prevent, avoid or overcome them. He bade men to analyze the defects of the world, and of the then civilization, and to conserve and build up the means to remedy them. His religion has not fostered a nest of lazy, inactive dreamers; but has developed an aggressive, disciplined, and energetic Church Militant. The end of the Christian is not an absorption into an unconsciousness of realities, but an eternal realization of the best God has made, and a conscious communion with Him forever.
If Christian Science be Christian, what has it to say of Christ's coming into the flesh? If mind be all, why this necessity? Was this astounding fact of history a mere mental chimera, or was it a real objective occurrence, attested by the physical senses, and worthy of actual belief? If not the latter, any myth ingeniously devised would suit or serve humanity as well. What is the meaning of Christ's sufferings? Were they real or were they merely vain shadows? And was He an incarnation of error?
What becomes of the significance of the cross? Of the laying down of the divine life, of the Resurrection and Ascension, if men's wills are entirely the masters of their own fates and can reason away all things deadly, sinful or destructive? These Christian conceptions must, then, be worthless; for they are absolutely antagonistic to any philosophy which rests its fundamental belief on a structure of intangibilities. They cannot form any part of it.
What place is found for the Christian Sacraments which are woven in the very fiber of the genius of Christianity? Why an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, if there be none but subjective actualities? Can that be entitled to the name of Christian which controverts these visible aids, ordained and established in the holiest solemnity by the Master himself? The attempt to filch the term Christian in order to cover beliefs so foreign to the whole Christian spirit is nothing more than fraudulent and shameless.
But the gravest error and the most un-Christian peculiarity of Christian Science reside in the fact that they place the center of the universe in the soul of each individual, thus making an innumerable number of centers, which is impossible, and fostering a sort of serene contentment of selfishness, which is everywhere in antagonism with the progress of the race. In the prefatory quotations to Mrs. Eddy's book, the most important excerpt reads: "I, I, I—I itself, I—the inside and outside, the what and the why, the when and the where, the low and the high—all I, I, I—I itself, I."
Instead of all things meeting in and emanating from God, and instead of man as one of the many instruments of God's purposes, subject to His will, and created for His glory, we find the soul of man containing all realities and all possibilities—in short, the creature placed in the position his Maker should hold and practically identified with Him. The absurdity and evil influence of such a belief must surely be obvious, when carefully considered; and would certainly be more so if any large portion of humanity were controlled by its force.
Again, in the realm of conduct and ethics, as well as in philosophical fundamentals, the practice of Christian Scientists does not coincide with the teachings of the Master. According to their strict theory no physical care is to be given to the sick; nor is sympathy, as we understand it, to be offered to the afflicted. Even the knowledge of disagreeable things is to be avoided. He who suffers is to be told that he doesn't suffer, and not for a moment to confess to himself that he can suffer. What he takes for bodily suffering is nothing but mental error.
Thus, in one sweep, is the parable of the Good Samaritan done away with: and the priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side exalted. Humanitarianism and altruism have no place; for, if there be no sorrow or pain, except such as we make or undo for ourselves in our thought, what need then, as the true Christian thinks, of that touch of nature which makes the whole world kin?
We who believe in the love and power of the Son of God, and in His reality as a person beyond and above us, are taught that no man is all sufficient unto himself; that the finite mind cannot contain the infinite God and all the wondrous works he has fashioned in furthering his purposes; that material things are realities; and that, in so far as we recognize the proper sphere to which we belong, and in it labor, forgetful of self and looking to the author of our being—not shirking the burdens He places upon us, but looking with confidence to the better life: thus far, we are doing better than by attempting to ignore facts that are, and by fancying an unreal world that passes when our bodies have mingled with the dust.
To follow Christ, and do His work here, looking the actual situation in the face, acknowledging the pain and the sorrow, bearing the burden of the cross as men, bravely—upholding it, realizing it, without attempting to explain it away—this is truly Christian; but the other is not.
Further, on the doctrinal side, Christian Science is in direct antagonism with nearly all the statements of the Apostle's creed.
It denies the reality of the world, the handiwork of the Creator, by saying that "matter is the error of mortal mind," and therefore denies God as the Creator of the world as it is. It practically denies the doctrine of the Incarnation, by assuming that all bodily forms are the outcome of error, distorted mind, and so forth. It subverts the doctrine of the Trinity, as the Church has always held it; and substitutes for it a shadowy nothing. It says there will be no Judgment. It flouts the sanctity of the Church, refuses to acknowledge the Church's mission to the world, and would wish to destroy that institution. It opposes the belief in pardon and the forgiveness of sins and condemns the desire to receive such pardon; and says, moreover, that "the abiding consciousness of wrong-doing tends to destroy the ability to do right"; and, last of all, it will not accept credence in death and the resurrection.
In view of all these facts, what is there in Christian Science that is even remotely Christian?