Christian Science and Pantheism
By Editor
IN the letter of Mr. Farlow published in the SIGNS last week, exception is taken to our charge that Christian Science is pantheistic. In making the charge, we gave a large amount of evidence that there is close kinship between Christian Science teaching and idealistic pantheism. In the letter of Mr. Farlow, he says, "[Christian] Science does not deny the tangibility or infinite personality of God, altho it does affirm that God is not person or form in the humanized sense." This denial of God's having form marks again the kinship between pantheism and Christian Science. The Word is never in hesitancy on this point. It plainly teaches that God has form. Christ is the "brightness of God's glory, the express image of His person." Christian Science makes this entirely a matter of character or principle. But if the word "image" does not present the idea of form or outline, I do not know what word could. In the beginning "God formed man of the dust of the ground." Gen. 2:7. Nevertheless so formed he was in the "image" and "likeness" of God. Gen. 1:26. Did this apply only to character or principle? The record does not say so. It makes the matter very explicit—"In Our image, after Our likeness." God prohibited murder as a violence against His own image, the image of God in man. Gen. 9:6. That man is made in the image of God is good New Testament doctrine also, as will be found by reading the following: "Therewith bless we the Lord and Father; and therewith curse we men, who are made after the likeness of God." James 3:9. "For a man indeed ought not to have his head veiled, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man." 1 Cor. 11:7. The descriptions of God in the Scriptures present Him as a being of glorious form and terrible in majesty: "I beheld till thrones were placed, and one that was ancient of days did sit: His raiment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool; His throne was fiery flames, and the wheels thereof burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousands of thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the book were opened." "I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and He came even to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." Dan. 7:9, 10, 13, 14. "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and His train filled the temple. Above Him stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of Hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Wo is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes9have seen the King, Jehovah of Hosts." Isa. 6:1-5. Mr. Farlow asks, do we "accept the Scriptural teaching, 'God is everywhere present?'" If such is Scriptural teaching, the quotation ought to be in the Scriptures. It would have helped to make his Science complete, and would have given him a proof text of infinite importance. But such statement is nowhere within the lids of the Bible. It is therefore not Scriptural teaching. Consequently there is no reason why we should believe it. To bolster up the Christian Science (and it is also the pantheistic) idea that God is everywhere, Mr. Farlow quotes Ps. 139:8-10. But in the verse that introduces this statement of the psalmist, which Mr. Farlow does not quote, we have the expression: "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?" This question the psalmist then answers in the words quoted by Mr. Farlow: "If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall Thy hand lead me, And Thy right hand shall hold me." This shows us at once how we are to understand this scripture. We are to understand that God is omnipresent by His Spirit. This is exactly in accordance with the teaching of Christ over and over again: "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever. . . . I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you." John 14:16, 18. "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of Me." John 15:26. "For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father." Eph. 2:18. To say that God has form is not to say per se that He is finite. I can in a measure project my personality out from beyond my body. For example, these lines I am now writing in the quiet of the editorial rooms, will be read by hundreds far from sight or sound of him who wrote them. With the telephone I have talked across a state. With my voice I have reached hundreds in a room or a pavilion or in the open air. Where I can project my personality feebly and imperfectly, God can project, through His Spirit, His personality fully and perfectly. And now to close this article, let us say a few things we have said before upon this subject. "'The radical principle of the [pantheistic] theory is that God and the world are one. It denies to God any being distinct from the world, and to the world any being distinct from God. It may assume different forms according to the manner in which the divine nature is conceived. God may be conceived as spirit, . . . in [which] case there results an idealistic form of pantheism.'—'Apologetics,' by Alexander Balmain Bruce, D.D., p. 71. "The quotation given above was written without any reference to Christian Science. It is a plain definition of pantheism in its various forms; and we see at once, if we know anything about Christian Science, how truly the latter is pantheistic. Christian Science is a form of idealistic pantheism; it accounts God and the real world as one, and that spiritual; this is its fundamental doctrine; this is the root from which the whole growth springs. We will find very much in the book 'Science and Health;' but consider this, taken almost at random from its pages: 'God is the divine Principle of all that represents Him and of all that really exists.' "Put this with the definition of pantheism as already given. 'The radical principle of the [pantheistic] theory is that God and the world are one.' And the radical principle of the Christian Science theory is that God is the divine principle of all that really exists. "'All is mind or God,' says Christian Science. 'All is God,' says pantheism. Both come from the same root; the two grafts may differ in outward form to some extent, but there is such a kinship between the two that they both thrive from the very same root. "And now according to the teachings both of Christian Science and of pantheism, since all is God, all is eternal; there was no creation. Pantheism teaches, 'All things exist eternally by necessity.' Christian Science teaches that 'harmonious and immortal man has existed forever.' 'Spiritual man is the image or idea of God, an idea which can not be lost nor separated from its divine Principle.' 'Immortal man is coexistent and coeternal with God.'—'Science and Health,' chapter on 'Science of Being.' "If man is coexistent with God, he has always existed with God, and was never subject to creation; for man there is no creation but coexistence with God. In this, pantheism and Christian Science are irrevocably in accord. "Again, in tracing the likeness between pantheism and Christian Science, we see that both reject the Christian idea of the personality of God. Pantheists reject the doctrine of God's personality on the ground that it makes God finite. Fichte says, 'You make the divine Being a limited being like yourselves by ascribing to Him that attribute' [personality].—Fichte's Works, page 157. Similarly says Christian Science, as might be quoted in many forms from 'Science and Health,' but this from the chapter on 'Science of Being' is sufficient: 'A personal sense of God . . . necessarily limits faith and hinders spiritual understanding.' And in the paragraph preceding this the author shows what she thinks the Christian belief in the personality of God really is in contrast with Christian Science: 'Mortals believe in a finite personal God, while God is infinite love, which must be unlimited.' "And thus again Christian Science can not rid itself of the charge of being pantheistic. It teaches the personality of God exactly as pantheism teaches it. By both pantheism and Christian Science, man's intellectual love of God is simply God's love of Himself; and as God loves Himself only in man, it is on man's part simply the enjoyment of his own existence as a rational being. This last is plainly involved in the first, that real man is part of God. "And so just to the extent that man ceases, God ceases. That is to say God has no existence save in man. This is pantheism, but, too, it is Christian Science. Taking two sentences from chapter 'Science of Being' in the reverse order we get this idea a trifle more clearly yet, and it is easily seen by any one as the sentences stand: 'Spiritual man is the image or idea of God.' 'God without the image or likeness of Himself would be a nonentity, or mind unexpressed. He would be without a witness or proof of His own nature.' That is to say, putting the two together, 'God without spiritual man as the image or likeness of Himself would be a nonentity, or mind unexpressed. He would be without a witness or proof of His own nature.'" Mr. Farlow says, "He [man] is not a part of God, but the expression or image of God." This fails to agree with what we have just quoted from Mrs. Eddy. But even admitting his statement, Christian Science still has enough left in kinship with pantheism for us not to mistake it. It is pantheistic because: It robs God of personality, It denies God as having form, It denies any creation worthy the name, It makes God out to be an influence, a pervading principle everywhere present. Its radical principle is that all is mind or God, and man must be included in this "all," and so is part of God. God is dependent upon man for His representation or expression, and this and all these as mentioned are but forms of pantheism. The radical principles of Christian Science and pantheism are wonderfully alike. Christian Science is pantheistic.