Bible study and philosophy

I find this on page 15 of our book No and Yes very interesting: 

“Fatiguing Bible translations and voluminous commentaries are employed to explain and prop old creeds, and they have the civil and religious arms in their defense; then why should not these be equally extended to support the Christianity that heals the sick” (15:7-12). Probably at this period in the history of Christian Science we are seeing more searching of Bible translations and commentaries by its students than ever before. We trust that this is making us better students and practitioners of this Science of Christianity that heals the sick.

We have authority for saying that "person" is not "man", where Mrs. Eddy says, on page 19 (line 26):

“Person is formed after the manner of mortal man.” This is included in the sub-chapter "Is There a Personal Deity?" 

After speaking about personality, Mrs. Eddy turns to human philosophy, mentioning famous philosophers Leibnitz, Descartes, Fichte, Hegel, Spinoza, Bishop Berkeley, and their “so-called metaphysical systems.” These systems, writes Mrs. Eddy, “...are as moonbeams to the sun, or as Stygian night to the kindling dawn.”

With some research, I found that Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz has a prominent place in the history of philosophy. In fact, Leibnitz, René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza are classed as the three great seventeenth century rationalists and modern logic and analytic philosophy are considered to have grown from Leibnitz' reasoning.

One is in awe at Mrs. Eddy's knowledge of learning through the ages (perhaps her brother Albert talked with her about these things) and her marvellous ability to absorb learned subjects and make them her own.

I went looking for the sub-chapter Science and Philosophy in Miscellaneous Writings (pages 359 to 368) and found that Mrs. Eddy has written much about philosophy. I liked this one, from her autobiography Retrospection and Introspection (p. 34:6): “Neither ancient nor modern philosophy could clear the clouds, or give me one distinct statement of the spiritual Science of Mind-healing. Human reason was not equal to it.”  

I must make a deeper study of those certain-to-be-inspiring passages on philosophy. 

Joyce Voysey

Skeptical?

It's fashionable these days to be skeptical about a lot things, Christianity included.

Mrs. Eddy, at the sharp end of skepticism herself, points a wry lesson on page 43 of her book No and Yes. Here she relates an incident in which a "distinguished clergyman", suffering from "nervous prostration", had come to be healed. He reported having to keep to a certain diet in order to continue with his work.

She writes: "Here a skeptic might well ask if the atonement had lost its efficacy for him, and if Christ's power to heal was not equal to the power of daily meat and drink. The power of Truth is not contingent on matter."

What follows is a collection of reports of the benefits attested to by readers of her book Science and Health.

Julie Swannell

 

Getting the facts

Reporting on a topic, an event, or a situation, requires keen observation and a willingness to set aside preconceived notions. Thus, we might visit a new place and subsequently come away with a whole new sense of it. Our old views may have been influenced by ignorance or misinformation. As we set aside our prejudices and agree to learn with an open heart, rich treasures await us.

Mary Baker Eddy’s discovery of Christian Science set many of the world’s conceptions of reality on their end. Long-held convictions were being overturned. Some were ready to receive it as “glad tidings”; others resisted and challenged her. In the latter case, Eddy was grateful for opportunities to correct misconceived notions, and the little book “No and Yes” is the outcome of one such opportunity.

She writes that (p. 43: 26) “Science often suffers blame through the sheer ignorance of people, while envy and hatred bark and bite at its heels.”

Let’s take a look at some of the topics she touches on and which may come to Reading Room librarians from time to time:

Does Christian Science teach that disease is merely imagination?

               “Disease is more than imagination; it is a human error, a constituent part of what comprise the whole of mortal existence, - namely, material sensation and mental delusion.” P. 4: 6-9

How does the Golden Rule apply in Christian Science?

“We must love our enemies, and continue to do so unto the end. By the love of God we can cancel error in our own hearts, and blot it out of others.” P. 7: 7

How does Christian Science compare with spiritualism and theosophy?

               “No greater opposites can be conceived of, physically, morally, and spiritually, than Christian Science, spiritualism, and theosophy.” P. 13: 19

Macquarie Pocket Dictionary –

                    Spiritualism – a belief or doctrine that the spirits of the dead keep living after the mortal life, and communicate with the living, especially through a person or medium

                    Theosophy – a system of belief and theory, based largely on Brahmanic and Buddhistic ideas, of the Theosophical Society (founded in New York in 1875)

What’s the value of Christian Science?

            “Reading my books, without prejudice, would convince all that their purpose is right. The comprehension of my teachings would enable any one to prove these books to be filled with blessings for the whole human family.” P. 15: 4-7

Does Christian Science embrace pantheism?

               “Christian Science refutes pantheism, finds Spirit neither in matter nor in the modes of mortal mind.” P. 15: 20-21

What can meet humanity’s needs?

               “Right thinking and right acting, physical and moral harmony, come with Science, and the secret of its presence lies in the universal need of better health and morals.” P. 18: 9

“Even doctors will agree that infidelity, ignorance, and quackery have never met the growing wants of humanity.” P. 19: 5-7

What about human philosophy?

               “Human philosophy has ninety-nine parts of error to the one-hundredth part of Truth, - an unsafe decoction for the race. The Science that Jesus demonstrated, whose views of Truth Confucius and Plato but dimly discerned, Science and Health interprets.” P. 21: 2-7

Is there a personal devil?

               “Evil is a quality, not an individual.

               “As mortals, we need to discern the claims of evil, and to fight these claims, not as realities, but as illusions…” p. 23: 18-21

Is man a person?

               “Man is not absorbed in Deity; for he is forever individual; but what this everlasting individuality is, remains to be learned. Mortals have not seen it. That which is born of the flesh is not man’s eternal identity.” P. 25: 19-22

(This reminds me of John 3: 1-3.)

Does man have a soul?

               “The mind-quacks have so slight a knowledge of Soul that they believe material and sinning sense to be soul; and then they doctor this soul as if it were not even a material sense.” P. 29: 7

Can sin be forgiven?

               “To me divine pardon is that divine presence which is the sure destruction of sin; and I insist on the destruction of sin as the only full proof of its pardon.” P. 31: 11-14

What does Christian Science teach regarding sin?

               “It gives the lie to sin, in the spirit of Truth; but other theories make sin true. Jesus declared that the devil was “a liar, and the father of it.”” P. 33:14-16

Did Jesus have to suffer?

               “It was not to appease the wrath of God, but to show the allness of Love and the nothingness of hate, sin, and death, that Jesus suffered. He lived that we also might live. He suffered, to show mortals the awful price paid by sin, and how to avoid paying it.” P. 35: 11-15

[This was a question asked by a passer-by to our Reading Room one morning.]

Can we pray for ourselves?
“True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us.” P. 39: 17-19

How do Christians relate to Christian Science?

               “Through long ages people have slumbered over Christ’s commands, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel;” “Heal the sick, cast out devils;” and now the Church seems almost chagrined that by new discoveries of Truth sin is losing prestige and power.” P. 41: 19

The final page (p. 46) is a rousing call to humanity to choose its way forward, without prejudice against womanhood.

This book offers a terse and tight reply to misconceptions afloat, then and now, about the Science of Christianity. It is worth a look.

Julie Swannell

What corrects?

We all need correction from time to time. We should be glad of it. It keeps us on the right pathway. If we're a musician, our ear might discern where we're going wrong. If we're a child, our parents might offer guidance.

Sometimes, we decide on a course of action because of particular information - or lack thereof. I have some friends who had decided they would not visit Brunei but would sail right past. With more accurate first-hand information however, they changed their minds and have decided they wouldn't miss it for the world.

Getting the right information out is important. It can clarify and adjust. My school motto was (and still is, presumably): Scientia est potestas - knowledge is power. Before passing judgment, we need to be sure of our facts, that is, we need the right knowledge of the subject.

In "No and Yes", Mary Baker Eddy answered some of the misconceptions then abounding about Christian Science. Perhaps the same misconceptions are alive today.

The Introduction begins with some gentleness - a reminder that we can't change the sentiments of others overnight. In fact, it is not our work at all. Only the "still, small voice" of Truth at work gradually and silently, changes our natures -  expressed in the Bible as daily renewal of the inward man (II Corinthians 4: 18).

Eddy further explains that what corrects individual thought is "Life, Truth, and Love" (all synonymous names for God), and states that we "should not spread abroad patchwork ideas that in some vital points lack Science".  Just as we would not be true to the science of mathematics if we were to omit the number three in our calculations, so the learner needs the whole fabric, as expounded in Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures, for a correct platform from which to learn Christian Science.

This then sets the scene for the pages that follow, pages that face head-on some prevalent misconceptions and misunderstandings in regard to the Science of Christianity.

Julie Swannell

PS In her Miscellaneous Writings, Eddy speaks of a "life corrected" as "illumin[ing] its own atmosphere with spiritual glow and understanding." See page 356.

Reading Room encounter

It is quite amazing that we have easy access to the original "Defence of ChristianScience" article through http://www.JSH-Online.com. It is interesting to compare it with what we have in No and Yes.

I got up in the middle of the night to write: “All that overturning caused her to rise ever higher in her understanding of God, Principle, and enabled her to elucidate her ideal more clearly in the booklet and in revisions of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.” 

It's wonderful that Mrs. Eddy could classify Christian Science as “that crystallized expression”! (2.2) How well she knew her topic. (Crystallized: became crystal clear and fully formed. Merriam-Webster)

It would, perhaps, be a worthwhile exercise to compile a list of so-called mind-healing systems which sprang up as the result of Mrs. Eddy's discovery of the method of Scientific spiritual healing, and the publishing of its textbook; systems, the roots of which can be found in the years following 1866. How many of these are still operating to-day? Many have tried to use the ideas, but left God out of the equation.

There is so much of absolute Truth in this booklet that one finds every word a blessing and a lesson in living, especially living Christian Science. On page 9 I found this: “Divinely defined, Science is the atmosphere of God;”

A visitor to our Reading Room opened our conversation with, “Which is the most prominent in Christian Science, the Science or the Christian?” My reply seemed to satisfy him, “Christian Science is the Science of Christianity.” Earlier, I had been reading from the bound volumes of the Christian Science periodicals, when the thought came: “What is the main purpose of the Reading Room?” The answer, “To make Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (by Mary Baker Eddy) available to the public.”

So, I began at the beginning (page iii) and read aloud from that book – up to page 8. I was about to close the Reading Room when my visitor entered. We had a helpful talk and he was very interested in all the different editions of the textbook, including the tiny one which he seemed to favour. However, he borrowed the lovely paperback marble edition.

As I look back at that definition of Science, I consider that on that occasion “the atmosphere of God” was present to bless our meeting with Principle and Love.

Joyce Voysey

A brilliant response in defence of Christian Science

Julie's blog has prompted me to look further into the history of this little book. And a source of information is our book from March – Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial (Robert Peel).

Peel tells us that Mrs. Eddy's “Defence of Christian Science” was published in the March 1886 edition of The Christian Science Journal and later as a separate pamphlet (page 155).

When one reads the preceding pages one understands the necessity for this defence. One particular critic's comments were perhaps the last straw. “One has only to open the published volumes of its lady apostle in this city to find such a creed of pantheism and blasphemy as has been rarely compounded” (from a letter by Rev. A. J. Gordon, read in Tremont Temple and applauded by Joseph Cook). [Ed. See March 1886 Journal for Eddy's brilliant reply.]

And that leads us to the famous ten minutes allowed to Mrs. Eddy by the Rev. Cook in which she could respond at one of his Monday Morning Lectures. 

These pages of Peel's book are arresting in their description of the drama of those times (a few pages around page 155).

At this point, Peel doesn't explain the destiny of "Defence of Christian Science", but on page 185 he talks of “her powerful Defence of Christian Science (nucleus of her later book No and Yes).” So Mrs. Eddy must have amended the article for the printing of the pamphlet. This was a time when she recognised the necessity of reaching the educated world with her teaching. Or, as Peel has it: “Through the theological controversies of 1885 it became clear to her that the movement's lines of communication with the educated world needed strengthening” (p. 155).

Joyce Voysey

Ed. Readers may be interested to read some snippets from the May 1887 Journal which explain that "This pamphlet is now out of print. Its place is more than supplied, however, by the new work, entitled Christian Science: No and Yes, by M. B. G. Eddy."

In my handbag

May Book – No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy.

This amazing little book goes with me in my handbag. It is wonderful that when one is in 'waiting on an appointment' mode, it can be brought out to gain some enlightenment – no matter where it opens.

But right now the task is to read it from beginning to end.

As I read the Preface I was taken with the advice to “babes in Christ” to “leave the meat and take the unadulterated milk of the Word.” We are surely all babes in Christ, and each time we read this precious book it raises us a little higher towards that meat. And this is for the benefit for all mankind. Whatever blesses one blesses all, as Science and Health has it: “In the scientific relation of God to man, we find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes, – Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply” (206:15).

Joyce Voysey

Christian Science in relation to other Christian faith traditions

Our book for May is "No & Yes". 

What is the book No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy all about?

Here are some clues from The Mary Baker Eddy Library:

 - No and Yes began as an article in The Christian Science Journal of March 7, 1885, titled “Defence of Christian Science.” [The Mary Baker Eddy Library Feb 7, 2014] 

- A thought-provoking look at Christian Science in relation to other Christian faith traditions.

The Preface to the book itself explains its purpose:

- "to correct involuntary as well as voluntary error” (p. v).

Happy reading everyone!

Julie Swannell