Chapter Two

THE TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

In outlining this brief study of Christian Science, it is the conviction of the author that a series of primary quotations taken directly from official Christian Science books will prove far more useful to the average reader than any number of statements made by a non-Christian Scientist. Therefore to enable the reader to have this valuable source material at his fingertips, I have listed sixteen of the major doctrines of historic Christianity, and under each of their respective headings placed contradictory quotations derived from Mrs. Eddy's writings, which will I believe provide more than sufficient documentation should any dispute ever arise concerning the proper classification of Christian Science as an anti-Christian cult. (1)



I. Inspiration of the Bible

1. Referring to Genesis 2:7: "Is this addition to His creation real or unreal? Is it the truth? Or is it a lie, concerning man and God? It must be the latter.. ." (Science and Health, p. 517).

2. "... the manifest mistakes in the ancient versions; the thirty thousand different readings in the Old Testament, and the three hundred thousand in the New, these facts show how a mortal and material sense stole into the divine record, darkening, to some extent, the inspired pages with its own hue" (Science and Health, p. 33).
1. All quotations from the book Miscellaneous Writings are from the edition of 1897; and all quotations from Science and Health are from the edition of 1895, unless specifically designated otherwise. This is a Copyright precaution and the above quoted statements are still in print in current editions, though on different pages. Consult concordances of Christian Science publications for verification.




II. The Doctrine of the Trinity and the
Deity of Christ


1. "The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests heathen gods, rather than the one ever-present I Am" (Science and Health, p. 152).

2. "The Christian who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist. Thus he virtually unites with the Jews' belief in one God and recognizes that Jesus Christ is not God (2) as Jesus Himself declared, but is the Son of God" {Science and Health, [1914], p. 361).

3. "The spiritual Christ was infallible: Jesus, as material manhood, was not Christ" {Miscellaneous Writings, p. 84).



III. The Doctrine of God and the Holy Spirit


1. "In that name of Jehovah the true idea of God seems almost lost. He becomes 'a man of war,' a tribal god to be worshiped rather than Love, the divine Principle to be lived and loved" {Science and Health, p. 517).

2. "God: Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind" Science and Health, p. 9).

3. "God is all... the soul, or mind, of the spiritual man is God, the divine Principle of all being" {Science and Health [1914], p. 302).




IV. The Virgin Birth of Christ


1. "A portion of God could not enter corporeal mortal man; neither could His feelings be reflected by Him, or God would be manifestly finite, lose the deific character, and become less than God" {Science and Health, p. 231).

2. "Jesus, the Galilean prophet, was born of the virgin Mary's spiritual thoughts of life and its manifestation" {The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p. 261).



V. The Doctrine of Miracles


1. "The sick are not healed merely by declaring there is no sickness, but by knowing that there is none" {Science and Health [1914], p. 447).

2. "A mere request that God will heal the sick has no power to gain more of the divine presence than is always at hand" {Science and Health, p. 317).

3. "The so-called miracles contained in Holy Writ are neither supernatural or preternatural . . . Jesus regarded good as the normal state of mind and evil as the abnormal.... The so- called pains and pleasures of matter were alike unreal to Jesus: for He regarded matter as only a vagary of mortal belief, and subdued it with this understanding" {Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 200-201).
2. Italics ours.




VI. The Atonement of Jesus Christ



1. "The material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin, when it was shed upon 'the accursed tree,' than when it was flowing in His veins, as He went daily about His Father's business" (Science and Health. D. 330).

2. "The real atonement so infinitely beyond the heathen conception that God requires human blood to propitiate His justice and bring His mercy needs to be understood. . . . He (Jesus) suffered, to show mortals the awful price paid by sin and how to avoid paying it. He atoned for the terrible unreality of a supposed existence apart from God. He suffered because of the shocking human idolatry that presupposes Life, Substance, Soul and Intelligence in matter . . ." (No and Yes [1893], pp. 44-45).



VII. The Death and Resurrection of Christ


1. "Jesus' students, not sufficiently advanced to understand fully their Master's triumph, did not perform many wonderful works until they saw Him after His crucifixion, and learned that He had not died" (Science and Health, p. 350, 351).

2. "His disciples believed Jesus dead while He was hidden in the sepulchre, whereas He was alive, demonstrating, within the narrow tomb, the power of Spirit to destroy human, material sense" (Science and Health, p. 349).



VIII. The Ascension and Second Coming of Christ


1. "Through all the disciples beheld, they became more spiritual, and understood better what the Master had taught. ... They needed this quickening, for soon their dear Master would rise again in the spiritual scale of existence, and fly far beyond their apprehension. As the reward for His faithfulness He would disappear to material sense, in that change which has since been called the Ascension" (Science and Health, p. 339).



IX. Satan and the Existence of Evil


1. "The beliefs of the human mind rob and enslave it, and then impute this result to another elusive personification, named Satan" (Science and Health, p. 81).

2. "There was never a moment in which evil was real" (No and Yes, p. 33).



X. The Nature and Existence of Hell


1. "The sinner makes his own hell by doing evil, and the saint his own heaven by doing right" (Science and Health [1914], p. 266).

2. "The olden opinion that hell is fire and brimstone, has yielded somewhat to the metaphysical fact that suffering is a thing of mortal mind instead of body; so, in place of material flames and odor, mental anguish is generally accepted as the penalty for sin" {Miscellaneous Writings, p. 237).



XI. The Kingdom of Heaven Its Reality and Significance


1. Definition: "Heaven. Harmony; the reign of Spirit: government by Principle: spirituality; bliss: the atmosphere of Soul" (Science and Health, p. 578).

2. "Heaven is harmony infinite, boundless bliss. . - . Heaven is the reign of Divine Science" (First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p. 267).



XII. The Doctrine of Eternal Salvation


1. "Man as God's idea is already saved with an everlasting salvation" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 261).

2. "Final deliverance from error whereby we rejoice in immortality, boundless freedom, and sinless sense is neither reached through paths of flowers, nor by pinning one's faith to another's vicarious effort" (Science and Health, p. 327).



XIII. The Doctrine of Prayer


1. "Prayer can neither change God, nor bring his designs into mortal modes... I have no objection to audible prayer of the right kind; but inaudible is more effectual" (No and Yes, pp. 48 and 50).

2. "If prayer nourishes the belief that sin is cancelled, and that man is made better by merely praying, it is an evil. He grows worse, who continues in sins because he thinks himself forgiven" (Science and Health, p. 311).



XIV. The Creation of Matter and Its Reality


1. "There is... no intelligent sin, evil mind or matter: and this in the only true philosophy and realism" (No and Yes, p. 47).

2. "There is no Life, Truth, Intelligence or Substance in matter but all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation for God is All in all" (Science and Health [19141, p. 468).


XV. Man, the Soul. His True Nature and Destiny


1. "Man originated not from dust, materially, but from Spirit, spiritually" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 57).

2. "Man is God's image and likeness; whatever is possible to God, is possible to man as God's reflection" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 183).



XVI. The Existence of Sin, Sickness and Death


1. "Being destroyed, sin needs no other form of forgiveness. . . . Since God is All, there is no room for His opposite . . . therefore evil, being the opposite of goodness, is unreal . . . for the sinner is making a reality of sin making that real which is unreal. . . . Only those who repent of sin, and forsake all evil, can fully understand the unreality of evil. .. . To get rid of sin, through Science, is to divest sin of any supposed mind or reality, and never to admit that sin can have intelligence or power, pain or pleasure. You can conquer error by denying its verity" (Science and Health, p. 234).

2. "Death. An illusion, for there is no death; the unreal and untrue; the opposite of Good, God or Life.... Any material evidence of death is false, for it contradicts the spiritual facts of Being" (Science and Health, p. 575).

3. "To put down the claim of sin you must detect it, remove the mask, point out the illusion, and thus get the victory over sin, and prove its unreality" (Science and Health, p. 444). As the above quotations clearly indicate, the teachings of Christian Science are vastly different than those generally understood to comprise the fundamental teaching of historic Christianity. And it would be a foolish student of the Word of God indeed who does not take cognizance of these severe deviations from Biblical theology, and mark them well as evidence of another gospel, the product of plagiarism and the amalgamation of sources suitably doctored by a professional literary adviser (J. H. Wiggin), and made palatable to the average mind by the linguistic machinations of Mary Baker Eddy, who yet rules the empire of Christian Science from beyond the grave.