Christian Science and Common Sense
IT must not be supposed, now, that Christian Scientists, in their denial of matter, thereby deny what they call the reality of things. Such denial would be a denial of their own reality. They have seen this possibility and think they have avoided it. There has been some misapprehension here on the part of their opponents. Christian Science teaches that the true realities are spiritual; the material aspect only is the myth and illusion. For example, I have a pamphlet, written by one of their teachers. It has been published by them in an authoritative way. In this the author says: “It has been asked, Do you mean to say that this wonderful piece of mechanism, called the body, is an illusion, and that all the beautiful things in nature are but myths? We answer, Such is not the teaching of Christian Science.” From this the author goes on to speak of these things as existing in the spiritual sense, and says that the material aspect of these things is the illusion. In other words, the things themselves are not denied, but their material aspect is denied. The Christian Scientist does not deny the body, if you mean the spiritual body, whatever that may be. But if you mean a material body, he will tell you that “there is no physical science” (p. 127), the optical focus of the eye is an illusion (p. 122), the mind supposed to exist beneath a skull-bone is a myth (p. 281), man has a sensation body (p. 280), the material body is a sensuous, human concept (p. 177), heredity is not a law (p. 178), and dyspepsia is a random thought (p. 175). Now there it is; all is mind; if anything seems to dispute the fact, you are not to give it credence; it has no reality; it is an illusion. Surely this is an easy philosophy to follow, and it is enticing; it cuts out sin, misery, and even death, all in one statement. But the apostle Paul pointed us forward to the resurrection as the time when victory over death is to be given to the child of God. “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up of victory.” Then the last enemy, death, will be destroyed. Then the glorified saints will cry enraptured, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” But Christian Scientists have found a short cut that, they say, avoids the grave. They have a “through limited” that does not cross the dark river. Theologians have long mistakenly taught the idea that the spirit will be released at death. Mrs. Eddy puts the time for the release of spirit this side the grave; she does it by denying the material body. But the fact of the case is that the spiritual and glorified body, the body of power and permanence, according to the fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians, is not to be given until the saints are resurrected. We certainly ought to wait God’s time. But why should we be asked to doubt the validity of our senses as to the reality of matter? If a man must doubt the existence of matter with which he is constantly in contact, what can he believe?—Christian Science?—Well, I suppose he must, for that is all he will have left to believe. But candidly, is everything mind? When I ask my own personality, and push the question home upon my own consciousness, what is the answer that comes back to me? If I can believe the evidence of my own senses, I am a separate individual from all that is about me, I am something quite different from what is outside of me, and this world is a real world. When a person gets to the place where he discredits the evidence of his own bodily senses and the testimony of his own consciousness, there is no place for argument, reason, or even thought concerning it. One tramples upon his own mind and pushes his reason under foot. He promises to think only along the groove marked out to him by another no higher than himself. He thus enslaves even his own consciousness and defies that quality we call common sense. If this teaching of Christian Science is true, who is responsible for putting man into this hideous condition of persisting that dreams are realities? Who or what doomed him to live in the awful thralldom of being forever fooled? It could not have been the devil, for Christian Science denies the devil. It could not have been the angels, for angels are merely beautiful thoughts. For ages the human race has gone on in the delusion of taking nothing to be something, only to learn its folly in this the twentieth century through the word of a woman, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. She says that “all is Mind” (p. 257). And so no matter what things seem to be, we are to go against the evidence because she says so. We are to doubt our senses and our consciousness and our common sense, and believe her.