“CHRISTIAN SCIENCE:” ARE ITS DOCTRINES TRUTH OR ERROR?
By George I. Butler
Mrs. Eddy’s Views of Good and Evil Angels Examined.
It is well known that Mrs. Eddy and all Christian Scientists, her disciples, deny the existence of Satan as a personal being, and of all evil spirits called devils in the Scriptures. They also deny the reality of the heavenly angels, of whom the Bible has so much to say. In her glossary, she gives her definition of “devil:” “Evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor mind; the opposite of truth,” etc. See “Science and Health,” page 575. Her definition of “angels:” “God’s thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions; pure and perfect,” etc. See “Science and Health,” page 572. “Angels are not etherealized human beings evolving animal qualities in their wings; but they are celestial visitants flying on spiritual, not material, pinions. They are pure thoughts from God,” etc. (Italics mine.) “My angels are exalted thoughts.” “Angels are God’s impartations to man,—not messengers or persons, but messages of the true idea of divinity flowing into humanity. These upward soarings never lead mortals to self and sin. . . . They will tarry with us, and we shall be found entertaining ‘angels unawares.’”—Id., pages 194, 195. “The beliefs of the human mind rob and enslave it, and then impute this result to another illusive personification named Satan.”—Id., page 81. “Illusive” is from “illusion,” the meaning of which Webster gives as follows: “An unreal image presented to the bodily or mental vision; a deceptive appearance; a false show.” “Personification: a figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstract idea is represented as animated, or endowed with personality.” An “illusive personification,” then, is really a deception that does not really exist. Such, she says, Satan is; that is, no such being has an existence. “The supposition that corporeal beings are spirits, or that there are good and evil spirits, is a mistake.”—Id., page 236. “In the phrase, ‘Deliver us from evil,’ the original properly reads, Deliver us from the evil one. . . . Christian Science teaches us that the evil one, or one evil, is but another name for material sensation.”—Id., pages 321, 322. “The demon or evil replied that his name was Legion. Thereupon Jesus cast out the evil.”—Id. This last extract is an illustration of Mrs. Eddy’s way of quoting from the Scriptures. In quite a number of instances, when professedly quoting Bible statements of Christ’s casting out demons, or devils, she leaves off the first letter of the word devils, and quotes it as casting out “evils.” In either case she makes a terrible botch in the statement of her own doctrines; for over and over she tells us there is no such thing as evil or devil. These are wholly illusions, which have no real existence. How, then, could God or Christ cast out something that did not exist? These puerile, foolish, nonsensical statements from Mrs. Eddy’s own language will pretty well illustrate her views of good and evil angels. She tells us there are no such beings in existence. For the sake of poor souls who have become confused by her inconsistent, contradictory mysticisms, we will now let the Good Book speak for itself on these subjects. Heavenly angels existed before this world was created, hence that foolish belief, somewhat prevalent, that angels are spirits of dead men is utterly untrue. God said to Job: “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding . . . when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” Job 38: 4–7. Mrs. Eddy’s kind of angels—“good thoughts”—must have been rather noisy “thoughts” when they got to shouting for joy. How can sane people fail to see that those “sons of God” were real heavenly beings? Let us see how many there are of them: “And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures [R. V.] and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands” (Rev. 5:11); that is, one hundred millions, and thousands of thousands besides. Mrs. Eddy’s “good thoughts” were quite plentiful thereabouts. Moreover, these all had voices, and all praised the Lamb with united voices, saying, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” How could any sensible person, with any acquaintance with the Bible, or any reverence for it, claim that these angels of God were merely “good thoughts”? In the days of good King Hezekiah, king of Judah, and Isaiah the prophet, proud Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up and took nearly all the fenced cities of Judah, and was about to lay siege to Jerusalem itself. He sent a blasphemous message by one of his generals to Jerusalem, seeking to frighten the king to surrender. But he would not. The people were much alarmed. In the anguish of his heart, the king rent his clothes and went into the house of God. The Lord sent a comforting message to the king by the prophet Isaiah. He told Hezekiah: “Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.” The Lord sent an angel: “And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.” 2 Kings 19:35. That one “angel of the Lord” must have been a very powerful “thought,” according to Mrs. Eddy’s definition of the word “angel.” A “thought” that could kill one hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers in one night is rather a dangerous thing to be running around loose in this world. What ridiculous conceptions and mystifications of truth the great enemy can put into the minds of those doing his work, to befog the unwary and unsuspecting! But what a grand and glorious avenue of light this simple statement of Holy Writ opens to the believer’s mind, proclaiming the wonderful agencies of divine power, which are designed to protect the Lord’s people and to carry out His grand designs. Just think of hundreds of millions of such angels as this, all waiting but to know and do His pleasure. Here was proud, wicked Sennacherib, the oppressing tyrant, filled with supercilious, lofty conceptions of his own greatness, with hundreds of thousands of mighty warriors to do his behests, pouring into little Judah, swarming into its cities of defense, who had captured almost everything but Jerusalem, the capital itself, where the temple of the Most High was situated. He sends his ambassadors to demand its surrender, who blasphemously announce their ability to conquer it in spite of all the God of Israel could do. Sennacherib and his host, suddenly called to go forth to meet the opposing Egyptian army, start on their way, expecting soon to return and finish the conquest of Judah, and carry its people into captivity. The great God chooses to give him and all like him a little lesson of what divinity can do when God sees best. He sends but one of His hundreds of millions of heavenly angels. The sleeping host of mighty warriors, fondly dreaming, perchance, of scenes of lust, carnage, and rapine soon to be theirs, when they awake, melts away by the loss of one hundred and eighty-five thousand of its bravest veterans, by the touch of God’s power. When the survivors arise, there lie cold in death this vast90host of soldiers. Proud, supercilious Sennacherib sneaks back to Assyria with his decimated ranks, there to be killed by his own sons. This object lesson ought never to be lost by earth’s proud and lofty oppressors. That God lives and reigns to-day. Soon the Son of God will come to earth with all the angels with Him, to gather His elect from the four winds of heaven, to the holy city of our God above. How little, how insignificant, how perfectly foolish, Mrs. Eddy’s conceptions appear in the light of such Scriptures! “But to which of the angels said He at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” Heb. 1: 13, 14. Hundreds of millions of mighty angels, God’s ministers in the great plan of human redemption,—these God has in His wisdom not permitted us to behold with our natural sight, as the sight would so affect us as to take away from us our free moral agency, even as it did John on one occasion, who was about to fall down and worship the angel. But he said to John, “See thou do it not: worship God.” Rev. 19: 10. God and Christ are the only proper objects of worship. So glorious was this being in John’s eyes that he was about to worship him. God knows man’s weakness. So these heavenly visitants are seen only on special occasions when such a view will accomplish great good. An interesting instance is mentioned in connection with the life of Elisha the prophet. War existed between Syria and Israel. When the Syrians prepared an expedition into the country of Israel, the prophet Elisha informed the king of it, and the Syrians made an utter failure in their efforts time and again. The king of Syria was perplexed, and suspected treachery on the part of his own servants because all his efforts miscarried. Finally one of his servants told him that Elisha the prophet told the king of Israel the words of the king of Syria even in his bed chamber, so he sent servants to spy out where the prophet lived. Then he sent a great host up there in the night, and surrounded the city with horses and chariots. When the servant of Elisha discovered this fact, he was greatly alarmed, and cried, “Alas, my master! how shall we do? . . . And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” See the whole narrative in 2 Kings 6: 8–23. According to Mrs. Eddy there must have been a good many powerful “thoughts” flying about there. At any rate, God’s servant was protected from all danger by the ministration of holy angels. Angels met Abraham, communed with him, yea, even ate of the food his hospitality had prepared. Genesis 18, whole chapter, especially verse 8. Two of these holy messengers came to save Lot and his family from the destruction of the Sodomites: Gen. 19: 1–16. At a great crisis in Jacob’s life one wrestled with him all night, and greatly blessed the stricken patriarch. Gen. 32: 24–30; Hosea 12: 3, 4. On many occasions angels appeared in connection with Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and their establishment in the land of Canaan. The angel Gabriel communed with the prophet Daniel (Dan. 9: 20–22), and with the virgin Mary, announcing that to her was given the great honor of becoming the mother of our divine Lord: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Luke 1: 26–35; Matt. 1: 25. This divine announcement is quite different from Mrs. Eddy’s miserable insinuation that the child born of Mary was only human in its origin, though after its birth the “Christ” spirit, or principle, was connected with it. We plainly discern in these scriptures the wonderful mission of the angels of God, and the utter nonsense of Mrs. Eddy’s “thoughts” theory. These blessed angels, who have been spiritual ministers unto all the heirs of salvation, will form a most interesting portion of that great “family” of God in heaven (Eph. 3: 15), when all the saints of God are gathered home. There we shall learn of them their many interesting experiences while we were earthly pilgrims, and they were our heavenly helpers in gaining victories over sin. What a blessed home that will be!