The Pagan Basis of Christian Science
By G. C. Cochran
Within a few blocks of where I am sitting there is a large stone church erecting for the use of a congregation of Christian Scientists, so-called. The cult established by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy upon the basis of the postulate, “Everything is mind,” or, “Everything is God, and God is in everything,” is by no means original with her. A portion of her philosophy was borrowed from the mind-curist, P. P. Quimby. The foundation of her system is borrowed from Hinduism. The late Madame Blavatsky drew her theosophy from Oriental sources also, from both Hinduism and Buddhism, and the vagaries of the Gnostic sects of the second century, but her agglomeration of philosophies and fraudulent “miracles” is now exploded, and Theosophy is wrecked. The revival of Hindu Vedantism as a substitute for Christianity in this country seems to have been measurably successful, judging from the reports put forth by Mrs. Eddy and her followers, some of whom claim a million adherents and several hundred church buildings. We can receive these figures with some allowance for the exaggerative enthusiasm of the Eddy interest. It is true, however, that the new cult is supported by wealthy people and not a few judges and lawyers and other professional men, business men and women, and persons in moderate circumstances. They profess to be happy in the new connection, which they claim to be the final substitute for all other cults. What is the attraction? The apostles of Christian Science quote the Bible quite freely. They defend their appropriation of the name “Christian” by saying that they recognize Christ as an expert in mental therapeutics, although they claim that Mrs. Eddy is far in advance of Christ, who, in their view, was a healer like themselves. They tell us distinctly that there is no such thing as sin. There is no need of an atonement. Repentance for imaginary wrongs is absurd. Mrs. Eddy, indeed, has with great fidelity taken into her system as the foundation stone the conspicuous feature of the Vedantic philosophy, which is essentially pagan. Her fundamental “principle” is that disease may be healed by denying its existence. They call themselves healers, while denying that there is any disease to be healed. “God,” Mrs. Eddy says, “is supreme; is mind; is principle; not person; includes all and is reflected by all that is real and eternal.” “The only realities are the divine mind and its ideas.” It is taught by Mrs. Eddy and her apostles that all men are emanations from the Infinite, and co-existed with the Infinite from all eternity, and that the miracles recorded in the Bible were only instances where a scientific healer dispelled various illusions of the people, who thought they were sick or possessed of devils! Of course, if God is the only real existence, the legitimate conclusion is that the soul and the world do not and cannot exist as distinct entities. They are not what they appear to be. Missionaries in India say that the commonest peasant, if asked who God is, will answer that he himself is God, very promptly. Brahma is one, and there is no second, is the Vedantic formula. That is, there can be no second anything, and all that is, is Brahma. Indeed, Mrs. Eddy might, consistently with her fundamental dogma, have adopted the Hindu creed, of which the following is one of the popular expressions in India:— “Now by Sivam, I declare that all
That is, is God; yet what I see is not,
It and the thousand evils of the world
Are not of God or true. They Maya
be.”
Maya is illusion. The distinction between sin and righteousness is only imaginary; an illusion. The Hindu philosopher candidly declares that caste, uncleanness, hatred, wandering thought, impure or pure, are all alike to Brahma. Logically, the doctrine of Maya leads to the accounting of personal responsibility as an illusion. God is an impersonal essence, and takes no cognizance of sin or righteousness, and men, therefore, are not responsible for their acts and thoughts. Manifestly, the fundamental dogma of Christian Science is copied pretty closely after the Vedantic, the pagan, model. Mrs. Eddy tacked the name “Christian” on her pagan philosophy apparently to make it draw half-hearted people from the Christian churches, who, following the so-called “liberal” theology of the day, are gravitating to a repudiation of the doctrines of sin, repentance, and atonement, and self-sacrifice in a life of service for Christ, and prefer to identify themselves with the life and precepts of the worldly externalism of the day. The spirit of Christian Science is directly antagonistic to the religion of Christ. While adopting or commending Christian ethics, organizing Sunday schools and churches, the fundamental pantheism so boldly proclaimed by Mrs. Eddy, renders these appurtenances of her system absolutely farcical. She denies that the body exists, although Christ repeatedly discoursed of body and soul as distinct entities, realities. She appropriates the leading feature of a corrupt and corrupting Hindu philosophy, the effects of which may be seen in India to-day. She takes the ancient heresy, and clothes it in new attire. It is not religion, but a system of therapeutics, which promises to heal disease by declaring that disease does not and cannot exist, and that it is a distinct illusion of man. It goes not a step further. It has no healing for the sin-stricken soul. It has no Saviour from sin, compassionate and merciful. It tramples underfoot the precious blood of the Christ, the atoning Saviour, while feloniously appropriating his name in order to deceive, if possible, the very elect of God.— G. C. Cochran, in The Living Church.