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
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