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293 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA science
that paper over the signature of Mrs. Eddy: " I should blush to write of `Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,' as I have were it of human origin, and I, apart from God, its author. But as I was only a scribe, echoing the harmonies of Heaven in divine metaphysics, I can not be super-modest in my estimate of the Christian Science text-book."
The present has to do with Christian Science only as a religious system; and with an authorized copy of Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures in hand (74th ed., 1893, 103d ed., 1896), there can be no doubt as to the principles which constitute the system.
Any system of thought or philosophy, which claims to be a religious system, must be tested first by its idea of God. In this department
i. Doctrine Christian Science is a confused and con- of God. fusing system. It is a strange mixture of pantheism and platonism, borrow ing from both and differing from each. The panthe ism of the East admitted the reality of the universe and taught that it is God. Christian Science denies the reality of matter (Science and Health, 103d ed., p. 173), teaches that mind is all and identifies mind with God (Science and Health, 103d ed., pp. 166, 171). This is the old monism, of which J. G. Fichte was the foremost apostle. He declared that God alone is and beside him is nothing. Christian Sci ence says that " nothing possesses reality or exist ence except Mind, God " (103d ed., p. 226). The following sentences, found everywhere on the pages of Science and Health, give the belief of this system. " In Christian Science we learn that God is definite ly individual, and not personal "; " An individual God rather than a personal God." This individual ity is defined as " the infinite and divine principle." Again, " God is a spirit, and spirit is divine princi ple." And definitely is it stated, " God is divine principle." " God is Spirit, and Spirit is divine Principle " (103d ed., pp. 225-227). This is the answer given to the question, " What is God? " " God is divine Principle, supreme incorporeal being, Mind, Spirit, Soul, Life, Truth, Love " (103d ed., p. 461). On the same page it is declared that these terms are synonymous and that they are " intended to express the nature, essence, and wholeness of Deity." The system identifies the existence of God with the existence of man as a spiritual being. " God, without the image and likeness of himself, would be a nonentity, or Mind unexpressed " (103d ed., p. 199). " Man is coexistent with God " (103d ed., p. 473). According to this system God is Prin ciple, is love, is Life, is Truth: but principle without personality, love without a lover, life without a liv ing being, truth without any consciousness. Mrs. Eddy's favorite word for God is Principle, an abso lute depersonalized term, one which does not ad mit of the ideas of consciousness, volition, or feel ing. Mrs. Eddy says, " God is good, God is truth, God is love." But she says more than that and it is that addition which defines Christian Science; for she declares: " Good is God, truth is God, love is God." Thus Mrs. Eddy puts attributes of God in the place of God, and deifies the attributes. All admit that God is good, is truth, is love, but objec tion arises when it is said that good is God, truth isGod, love is God. There are many detached sentences in Science and Health which any Bible student would accept as true expressions of the Biblical idea of God, but these sentences are offset by others which teach the very opposite ideas. Pres. William Herbert Perry Faunce, of Brown University, holds that " much of the success of Christian Science is due to the fact that its vague phraseology is equally acceptable to the evangelical Christian and to the atheist. - The average Christian, approaching the Christian Science creed on one side, hears that God is `spirit, omnipresent and eternal'; and at once accepts the teaching. The atheist, coming up on the other side, hears that God is `principle, truth, harmony,' and he can accept it without the slightest change of position ." (Search-Lights on Christian Science, New York, 1899).
A system is to be judged not by isolated sentences, but by its tone and tendency, its ultimate reach. The essential idea of God presented in Christian Science is that God is principle, not personality. As such the God of Christian Science has no existence apart from the mind or life that thinks God. President Faunce tells of a young man who had passed through Christian Science into atheism, who, when asked to describe the path he had traversed, answered: " The Christian Science teacher began by thoroughly persuading me that God is not personal, but is pure' Principle.' After some months I accepted that; and then I said to myself: `What is a principle? Does it have real existence? Is it an entity or reality? ' I soon saw that a ` principle ' is simply an idea of my own mind, and when the Scientist dissolved my God into ` principle ' I ceased to believe in any God whatever. I now believe simply in myself."
This is the ultimate of the Christian Science idea of God, it teaches one to find the spiritual reality, the "divine principle," within himself. But this does not accord with Biblical teaching, which is that God is Spirit, distinct from nature which he has created: that he is a being who wills and loves, who is to be obeyed and loved; a real, substantive existence, a self-conscious, intelligent, voluntary agent; a being who can say " I am," and to whom we can say " Thou "; a being on whom men are dependent and to whom they are accountable. Christian Sciience denies all this in denying personality to God. Since the God of Christian Science is other and less than personal, he is other and less than the Christian's God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of our spirits.
After defining God as Principle, the question is asked, "Is there more than one Principle?" (Sci ence and Health, 103d ed., p. 461). And the answer
2. Doctrine Life, one Truth, one Love; and this is of the God." On page 227 is this definite Trinity. statement concerning the Trinity:
" Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune God, or triply divine Principle. They represent a trinity in unity, three in one-the same in essence, though multiform in office: God the Father; Christ the type of Sonahip; Divine Science, or the Holy Comforter. These three express the threefold, essential nature of the Infinite." Such utter-