Christian Science in Conflict with the Bible
By John H. Hartog
Assuming to Be Based on the Bible, It Glaringly
Contradicts What the Divine Book Says In a recent number of a society paper appeared a full report of an address delivered by a prominent leader in the Christian Science denomination. In glancing over this report, I noticed so many things which are in clear contradiction of what God's word says, that I took the time to answer a few of the items — just a few. I read: "Truth being that which is, there can be no place where truth is not, where, for example, two times two do not make four. Therefore truth is omnipresent." I might in the same way argue: Falsehood being also that which is, there can be no place where falsehood is not, where, for example, two times two does not make five. Therefore falsehood is omnipresent. It must be patent to any sober person that my basis is fallacious, hence my deduction wrong. Yet on the explanation first quoted, is based the next decision, — that truth is God; and then the conclusion is jumped at, without the slightest proof, that God is without body, incorporeal. God said to Christ, "Let US make man in OUR image." The result was Adam, a man of flesh and blood. Moses states that God wrote His law with His finger. Ex. 31:18. John the revelator tells us of how the Lord's eyes and feet look; also of His hair, white as snow. Rev. 1:14, 15. The Saviour was taken up in a cloud, and the angels told the amazed beholders that in the same manner He would come again (Acts 1:9-11); and we who look for His soon coming, therefore expect — and have a right to expect, for God's word says so — to see our blessed Saviour come in the body to receive His own. Over and over, the Bible proves that to claim that God is incorporeal is contradictory to the word of God, on which, however, Christian Science is supposed to base its argument. The conclusion that because the Bible says God is Spirit, therefore He is incorporeal, leads this writer to the deduction also that therefore man also is incorporeal. It next leads to the confirmation of Satan's statement to the woman, that if she ate of the fruit, she would become immortal. God had warned her that she would die. Satan lied, and said, "Ye shall not surely die." That article declares that man is not mortal, that he is immortal. God's word states that only the Lord has immortality. 1 Tim. 6:16. Paul says, in Rom. 2:7, that God will give immortality to certain people. In 1 Cor. 15:53 he says, "This mortal must put on immortality." He is speaking of the resurrection. The aforesaid article makes Paul's statement absurd. IS THE UNIVERSE SPIRITUAL?
Now the next statement in the article, continuing to build on that mistaken conclusion as a basis — the basis of an incorporeal God — concludes that the universe created by God must be like Him, therefore indestructible and spiritual. It gives no reason for its assertion that it "must be like Him," and contradicts the many Bible warnings that in the end the Lord will destroy the world by fire and make a new earth. How the Lord will destroy an indestructible world is a puzzle. Why all His warnings about the coming destruction, if it is not to be? Another paragraph in the article says, "We do not have to experience death." But Heb. 9:27 says, "It is appointed unto men once to die." Rev. 14:13 speaks of "the dead which die in the Lord." 1 Cor. 15:22 says, "In Adam all die." And so on and on, proving over and over again that we do have to die. God Himself told the first man that if he disobeyed, he would "surely die," and after the fall He said, "Dust thou art [not, 'Spirit thou art,' but 'dust'], and unto dust shalt thou return." Another statement in the article gives Christian Science, instead of the Bible, credit for one's "thinking rightly of God." This is putting Christian Science above the word of God. One paragraph quotes Rom. 8:11 as speaking of "your mortal bodies"; but a paragraph on the previous page had just told us that we had no mortal bodies. IS IT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OR GOD?
The last paragraph openly avers that the credit for healing is due to Christian Science — to the truth which he, the Christian Scientist, knows; to the truth which he applies. The Bible, on the contrary, teaches that any one healed by prayer or faith owes it not to himself, but to the Lord. It is affirmed that the Christian Scientist knows that disease and sin are but false, mesmeric states of consciousness. But God, through His servant Isaiah (Isa. 53:12), foretold that Christ would "bear the sin of many." John 8:7 tells of Christ's saying, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." "And they which heard it, being745convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last." 1 John 3:4 tells us that "sin is the transgression of the law" — not that sin is a false, mesmeric imagination. Peter says that Christ "His own self bare our sins." Paul tells the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15:3), "Christ died for" — what? For our "false, mesmeric states of consciousness"? — No, but for "our sins." Why? — That we might have "life everlasting." If we already had immortality, then died He in vain. The last but one paragraph of the article quotes Mrs. Eddy as denying mortality; and the claim is made that we do not have to be sick, because God did not make us so. But who made Job sick? Why did God permit Satan to touch Job with illness? Why does God's word devote a whole book to this illness of Job, if there is no illness? THE TRUE REGENERATING POWER
To Christian Science is given the credit of regenerating a man; while God's word teaches that of ourselves we can do nothing, but that if we confess our sins, He is willing to forgive. Christian Science claims to bring man "nearer to God" by making him "better acquainted with his own selfhood." The Bible teaches that as we become better acquainted with our own selfhood, we will realize our utter unworthiness, and God's wonderful love, to give His only-begotten Son to redeem us. That is one reason why the book of Job was written; for when God made Job better acquainted with his own selfhood, he abhorred himself. And Job was a much better man than most of us. The last paragraph attributes to Mrs. Eddy the discovery of the knowledge of the Christ teaching, in 1866. Yet Peter, in his second epistle, for instance, tells the faithful that they shall "neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is said that Christian Science interprets the Bible so that it can be understood. Christ, on leaving, said that the Father would send us the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, to teach us all things. John 14:26. And the experience of untold thousands proves that no other help is necessary to comprehend clearly the apparent mysteries of the blessed Scriptures, which, without prayerful request for the Holy Ghost's guidance, seemed too mysterious and deep to fathom. Another paragraph says, "Our Master fully demonstrated divine science in His victory over death." But He demonstrated instead that He was the Son of God. "His disciples believed Jesus to be dead . . . in the sepulcher, whereas He was alive," the article continues. Was He? What does the Bible, on which Christian Science is supposedly based, say? — Over and over it tells us that Jesus died for us; that He was dead in the grave; that as we are baptized, we are buried with Him, after having died with Him, and are resurrected with Him. If there was no death, then there was no resurrection. The entire plan of salvation is based on Christ's death. To remove this basis, removes the atonement, the resurrection, and by contradicting the Old Testament and the New, would rob me of all my faith in a risen and ascended Saviour, who died for me, and give me instead what? — A "key to the Scriptures" to prove them false! "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain," says the apostle. 1 Cor. 15:14. "Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen." Verses 12, 13. Thus says Paul. And Jesus Himself said: "I lay down My life." John 10:17. "I am He that liveth, and was dead." Rev. 1:18. Finally, the closing paragraph says, "She [Mrs. Eddy] proved the Bible to be true." But the visions given to Daniel 2,500 years ago prove to me that the Bible is true and inspired; for the many things prophesied therein, which have all come true, including the remarkable prophecy as to when the Messiah would come and when He would be "cut off" (Dan. 9:25, 26), are more trustworthy proof to me than any conclusions based on the apparently simple basis that two times two is four everywhere, and that "therefore" there is no disease, no death, no mortal body, no living God on a throne, no heavenly sanctuary, no corporeal Saviour, nothing but a "false, mesmeric state of consciousness"! I have no quarrel with that belief or other beliefs; but when a "society paper" gives three pages to put such arguments before its readers, many of whom are thereby led away from their faith in a real Saviour, I believe I am not uncharitable if I, simply as a believer in a God who does not lie, put some of God's sayings in juxtaposition to those of Christian Science.