The Origin of Christian Science/Chapter 2

by Thomas Polhill Stafford

 

CHAPTER II.

THEOLOGY.

It is easily seen that one's conceptions of the divine being are fundamental. The theology of a system that is really a system is its heart. This is true of both Christian Science and Neoplatonism.

It may be said of Mrs. Eddy, as it was said of Spinoza, that she is God-intoxicated. She speaks repeatedly and constantly of the divine being. The term, God, or one of her synonyms for the term, occurs so often that one is tempted to question whether or not Mrs. Eddy takes the name of God in vain. But when we examine her thought and discover what she means by this holy name, how she dethrones it, how she robs it of its Biblical significance and glory, how she puts into it the conceptions of poor pagans and idealistic idolaters, we conclude that it is not the third commandment that she breaks but the first: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” For, what in reality is idolatry? It is worshipping or making supreme one's idea of God rather than the true God, whether this idea has a physical embodiment, called an idol, or not. When one makes an idea or principle supreme and calls it God, he becomes an idolater. Examine carefully Mrs. Eddy's own words and see that she does this.

Mrs. Eddy says of God, as the Neoplatonists do of the one, that he is indefinable: “God, good, is self-existent and self-expressed, though indefinable as a whole.”^[1] Plotinus emphasizing Plato's thought, says: “The One is ineffable in spoken or written word.”^[2] Nevertheless, Mrs. Eddy undertakes to define God, and the Neoplatonists attempt to describe the one.

She defines God as “Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind.”^[3] In the margin these terms are designated as “Divine Synonyms.” The initial letters being capitals is interesting. Again she says: “When the term Divine Principle is used to signify Deity, it may seem distant or cold, until better apprehended. This Principle is Mind, Substance, Life, Truth, Love. When understood, Principle is found to be the only term that fully conveys the ideas of God.”^[4] Let it then be fixed in our thought that when Mrs. Eddy uses the word God she means principle. This she says expressly, and she builds up her system upon this conception of God. In this she is consistent. The definition is in harmony with her position that God and all reality are identical; that God is all that really is, and that all that really is is God.^[5]

Whether these conceptions of God be true or not, one thing is true, that Mrs. Eddy in thus thinking is thinking the thoughts of others, but not the thoughts of the writers of the Bible. The reader of Mrs. Eddy's literature often finds “good” as a synonym for God. She says: “God is good” and “Good is Mind”; and explains that the statements may be reversed.^[6] Do not imagine that Mrs. Eddy has the conception of God as a being having this moral quality or any of the qualities suggested by the synonyms. She is rather identifying God with the principle of goodness. So she can say: God “is represented only by the idea of goodness.”^[7] Plotinus makes this distinction very sharp. Though the one is denominated the good it must not be said, he affirms, that “he is good.”^[8]

It is as illogical to conclude from the Scripture statement, “God is love,”^[9] that God and love are identical, as to conclude from the statement, “God is light,”^[10] that God and light are identical. The conception that God and the good are identical cannot be found in the Bible. But it is found often in Plato and his followers. Plato identified God and the good^[11] and Plotinus identified God and mind.^[12] The Neoplatonists talked much about the “one” and the “good”, which with them are synonyms for God. They are not thinking of a personal being but of the primary principle, which they so designate. The title of one of the books of Plotinus is, “On the Good or the One”,^[13] by which he means God or first principle; and he calls the “one” or God the “principle of all things”.^[14] Proclus says: “The one is the same as the good”.^[15] Spinoza used “substance” as a synonym for God, meaning thereby, as does Mrs. Eddy, that which exists in and of itself.^[16]

In addition to the specific points already noted, consider in general that Mrs. Eddy identifies God and certain qualities rather than ascribes them to him. Here so soon there comes before us a distinct tendency in Mrs. Eddy's thought corresponding to a distinct doctrine of the Neoplatonists, a tendency to raise the conception of the deity even to complete absence of all qualities.^[17] This is necessary for those who imagine that all qualities imply limitation or finiteness and understand by the infinity of God simply “allness”; and interpret it so as to destroy the personality of God.

Thus far in this chapter I have been stating the case in a general way only. Now I take up definite points and the argument will be plainer and more conclusive.

Coming then to the very heart of the matter, Mrs. Eddy is a pantheist. Christian Science is a form of pantheism. In saying this I am not calling Christian Science a bad name. I say it because it is a fact and because it must be said in order to explain Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy tries hard to parry this charge, but it is impossible to do it. Her case is hopeless.

Mrs. Eddy, of course, is not a pantheist if her definition of pantheism be accepted. She says: “Pantheism may be defined as a belief in the intelligence of matter”,^[18] or “that God, or Life, is in or of matter”.^[19] But every person informed in philosophy ought to know and does know that this is only one kind of pantheism, namely, materialistic pantheism. There is also idealistic pantheism, and Christian Science is this kind of pantheism.

Mrs. Eddy, in saying that Jesus “established the only true idealism on the basis that God is all”,^[20] confesses that her system is a kind of idealism. Now when she identifies God with reality, all or infinite reality, and robs him of his personality, as will be seen, she proclaims the doctrine of idealistic pantheism.

One who identifies God with nature is a pantheist, an idealistic or materialistic pantheist, according to his conception of nature as ideal or material. Mrs. Eddy says: “In one sense God is identical with nature, but this nature is spiritual and is not expressed in matter.”^[21] “Spiritual” nature is, with Mrs. Eddy, of course, nature ideally conceived. We do well to pause here and comprehend clearly what Mrs. Eddy means by “nature that is spiritual and not expressed in matter.” Evidently from such a nature all material objects are excluded. Again she means nature with all temporal relations excluded, for that nature which is identical with God is eternal and without change. What kind of nature is this? The following quotation will throw light on the question: “Principle and its idea is one, and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent Being, and His reflection is man and the universe.”^[22] For Mrs. Eddy, “Principle and idea” or God and man constitute, it seems, the universe. As we are trying to follow Mrs. Eddy we must attempt to comprehend this doctrine however difficult the task is. But we can succeed as this is no newly traveled road. Many have gone this way before and made it possible for both the author of Christian Science and us. I can promise the reader that it will be easier for him as we proceed; for, I repeat, Christian Science is a system of metaphysics and the study of other doctrines will make this one clearer. So let us go along carefully but steadily to the end.

Mrs. Eddy again says: “Allness is the measure of the infinite, and nothing less can express God”;^[23] “the only realities are the divine Mind and idea.”^[24] It would be difficult for Mrs. Eddy to teach more plainly idealistic pantheism. But when she faces the issue squarely she denies emphatically that she is a pantheist.^[25] Either she is ignorant of what pantheism is, or she is trying to avoid what she knows is a just charge and a telling objection to her system. The world's greatest pantheists are not materialistic but idealistic pantheists; for example, Buddha, Plotinus, Spinoza, Hegel. Of all pantheists Spinoza is the most thorough-going and pronounced and his pantheism is determined by his expressed identification of God and nature.^[26]

In this identification Spinoza uses the terms “natura naturans” and “natura naturata”. This is a very good parallel to Mrs. Eddy's language. She identifies God with “noumena” and “phenomena”,^[27] using terms that were made famous by Kant. Another of Mrs. Eddy's synonyms for God that should be recalled is the term “Ego”, which comes from Schelling. He attempted to combine the noumenon and phenomenon of Kant into one and named the product the “Absolute Ego.” Ego is the Latin first personal pronoun. Here we have pantheism tinged with a color of personalism. In Christian Science the tinge has faded out entirely though we have the meaningless sign, Ego.^[28] The pantheism of Christian Science, however, is not so extreme a type as is Spinoza's, whose pantheism, as Windelband observes, is “complete and unreserved”.^[29] It is set forth in a form absolute and without a “saving clause”. Spinoza teaches the immanence of God in nature so positively as hardly to suggest his transcendence. The Neoplatonists teach the transcendence of God, which is a modification or limitation of their pantheism. I am not able to find the transcendence of God very clearly set forth in Christian Science, but it is implied in the doctrine of emanation which is in both Christian Science and Neoplatonism. This doctrine is that the world or nature spiritually or ideally conceived, proceeded from the first principle or God, as light radiates or emanates from the sun. This is the famous illustration of Plotinus and is used often by Mrs. Eddy.

Plotinus says: “The One is all things;”^[30] “intellect is real existence and contains all real existences in itself, not after a spatial fashion but as though they were its own self, and it were one with them.”^[31] By intellect Plotinus means the creator or what Mrs. Eddy means by mind as a synonym for God. Proclus says: “The fabricator of the universe * * * contains in himself the forms of all things.”^[32] To a follower of Plato “forms of all things” means realities of all things. If all things are in God in this metaphysical sense, then all things are divine or are God, just as Mrs. Eddy reasons: “If Mind is within and without all things, then all is Mind.”^[33] Mind is one of Mrs. Eddy's “Divine Synonyms”, we are to remember. Again Proclus says: The Demiurgus “is intelligibles themselves.”^[34] The Demiurgus is the creator and by “intelligibles” Proclus means the forms or realities of things. Plotinus and Proclus then identify God with nature, when nature is spiritually or ideally conceived, just as Mrs. Eddy does. This is the thought of Proclus when he says that the Demiurgus “will contain (contains) the paradigms of the things that are generated”.^[35] Paradigms are patterns, forms or ideal essences. Proclus, speaking of an eternal being, considered as cause and of its eternal effect and distinguishing these from all temporal causes and effects, says that “the maker and that which is made are one”.^[36] This is an identification of God and nature as Mrs. Eddy understands God and nature in the language referred to. “Spiritual nature” is to Mrs. Eddy nature conceived as eternal, not as temporal and changing. This may be difficult for us to understand but we must attempt to understand it if we would know what Christian Science really is. It seems that we can understand this much at any rate, that whether or not Mrs. Eddy and the Neoplatonists know where they are going, it is certain that they are on the same way, to the same place, Mrs. Eddy being in the rear by fifteen centuries.

And now consider that the pantheism of both Mrs. Eddy and the Neoplatonists is modified by their doctrine of “emanation”. This feature or doctrine is more manifest in Neoplatonism than in Christian Science, but it is prominent in the latter also, as is clearly shown by the language of Mrs. Eddy. One may feel as he studies Christian Science that, while its pantheism is not so absolute and paralyzing as is Spinoza's, it is nevertheless colored with the same dark hopelessness that is found in his, and lacks in proportion the quality of bright hopefulness in which the Neoplatonists, by virtue of their doctrine of transcendence, excel Spinoza and Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Eddy stands rather between them. This is said not of Mrs. Eddy and Christian Scientists personally, whose cork-and-kite-like optimism is perhaps their most valuable asset. It is said of the special feature of pantheism that is found in Christian Science. And this leads me to repeat what was said in the previous chapter, that the Neoplatonism of Christian Science has a Spinozaistic stamp. This fact should be noted as it will help us to discern the anti-Christian, pantheistic and atheistic character of Christian Science. The pantheism of the Neoplatonists, Spinoza and Mrs. Eddy is atheism.

Consider now Mrs. Eddy's statements: “Infinite Mind is the creator, and creation is the infinite image or idea emanating from this Mind”;^[37] “creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected * * * the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God”;^[38] “From the infinite elements of the one Mind emanate all forms, colors and qualities, and these are mental both primarily and secondarily”;^[39] “Omnipotent and infinite Mind made all and includes all”;^[40] “As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man. Father and son, are one in being”;^[41] “Like a ray of light which comes from the sun, man, the outcome of God, reflects God”;^[42] In these declarations of doctrines there are many points of interest, some of which cannot be taken up now but will be later. At present consider that they contain these three important propositions:

1. That creation is an emanation from the creator.

2. That the relation of creation to the creator is illustrated by the relation of a ray of light to the sun.

3. That, while creation emanates from the creator, it at the same time abides in him.

These thoughts are in a peculiar sense Neoplatonic. Plotinus, explaining how intellect, the second hypostasis, being or nature after the first, came into existence, says: “We call it an image because it is begotten of the One and preserves much of the nature of the One, and is very like the One, as light is like the sun”;^[43] “We are to think of it as a radiance proceeding from the One * * * just as the light about and surrounding the sun is eternally generated from it.”^[44] This is an explanation of the first step in creation. It is a radiation or emanation from the first principle, as light proceeds from the sun. Explaining the second step in creation in the same way, he says: “Intellect being like the One follows the example of the One and pours forth a mighty power. This power is a particular form of itself, as was the case with that which the principle prior to intellect poured forth.”^[45] In like manner he explains all creation, saying: “There is then a procession from the origin of all things to the last and least of them.”^[46]

These quotations teach as clearly as do those from Mrs. Eddy that creation is to be considered as an emanation from the creator and that the relation of creation to the creator is illustrated by the radiation of light from the sun. So it is established that the first and second propositions designated above are true also in Neoplatonism.

That the third proposition is also true in Neoplatonism is evident from certain quotations from Proclus already given, but I add this other from Plotinus: “All things are in their origin inasmuch as they may all be traced back to their source.”^[47]

So it is clear that Christian Science and Neoplatonism view creation as both a proceeding from and an abiding in the creator, and use the sun and its rays as a means of explaining their conceptions. It is perhaps the best possible illustration for them, inasmuch as the rays of light proceed from the sun and at the same time retain also the essential quality of the sun, namely, light. When we are thinking of quality, not quantity, as in this case, to say that the sun is in the ray is the same as to say the ray is in the sun. The importance of this illustration in aiding us to understand both systems should be emphasized. Windelband, seeing how important it is in Neoplatonism, says: “To express this relation (between God and the universe) in figurative form, Plotinus employs the analogy of light, — an analogy which in turn has also an influence in determining his conception.”^[48]

I wish at this point to remind the reader once for all that I am not leading him into subtleties. It is Mrs. Eddy and her masters that are doing it, whom we are undertaking to follow in order to see how she is following them. If they talk of things that are beyond the power of the human mind to fathom, as they certainly do, still we must try to follow them and it may be that when they do this we can the more easily see her dependence on them. We are not concerned with the truth or the falsity of these speculations, but with the question whether or not Mrs. Eddy's system is in essential principles the same as that of the Neoplatonists. In other words, we are proving that Mrs. Eddy in claiming to be the recipient of a divine revelation and the discoverer of Christian Science is a philosophic plagiarist.

Having carefully studied what has been said as to the pantheism of Christian Science, it will not be very difficult, I hope, for us now to see that the god of Christian Science is an impersonal god. The language of Mrs. Eddy, already cited, in which she claims that “Principle” is the best term for God is sufficient in itself to justify this conclusion. Principle is not person and person is not principle. Principle is a quality of a person, or a rule for human action, or an abstract or primary truth. I am not able to think of it as being anything else. And to say that God is any one or all of these is to reduce him to limits much narrower than to say that he is a person. That God may be thought of as in some way limited is a cause of great concern to Mrs. Eddy, and to her infinity, or unlimitedness, is simply the sum total of all reality. She says: “Allness is the measure of the infinite, and nothing less can express God.”^[49] It is clear that in such a system of pantheism, “Principle” is the best name for God, and God is not to be thought of as a person.

This subject gave Mrs. Eddy much trouble. She hardly knows what to do with it. There are repeated efforts to free her theology from what she felt is a very damaging defect. Accordingly, when we put together her various statements, contradictions are manifest. But plain statements, as well as her many synonyms and numberless references to God, together with the place which he occupies in her metaphysical system, compel us to think of what she calls God as something impersonal. Mrs. Eddy can refer to her god by means of the pronoun, “she,” as well as the pronoun, “he,”^[50] and for her one is really as good as the other, but the impersonal pronoun “it” would be the best. Her god is an “it.” See that she does really so speak of it.

Once when a friend, who was a stranger to my little girl, eighteen months old, who did not yet know how to distinguish between the pronouns, came to visit us, the inquisitive child stepped around and quietly asked, “Papa, what is it?” It was the child's innocence that made it funny. Had she known better it would have been impudence. When we look at the young baby in the mother's arms shall we ask “What is his name?” But we do not know whether the baby is a boy or a girl. So we may ask the proud mother “What do you call it?” and get into worse trouble. The mother feels that her babe is something infinitely more than an it. Her child is a human being, a person, and is not to be thought of as a thing either finite or infinite.

Let us first examine Mrs. Eddy's statements. “Person is formed after the manner of mortal man, so far as he can conceive of personality. Limitless personality is inconceivable. * * * Of God as a person, human reason, imagination and revelation give us no knowledge;”^[51] “God is Love; and Love is principle, not person;”^[52] “The world believes in many persons; but if God is personal, there is but one person, because there is but one God.”^[53] In the first edition of Science and Health the personality of God is more boldly denied than in the one of 1911.^[54]

Again she says: “If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite person,—in the sense of infinite personality, but not in the lower sense.”^[55] This language is very interesting. If God is to be thought of as personal, it is not a person that he is, but limitless personality, which Mrs. Eddy says is inconceivable. If God is personal then there is but one person and accordingly a man is not a person. The essence of Mrs. Eddy's statements is that if we think of God as person we must not think of a man as a person, and if we think of a man as a person we must not think of God as person; for to think of God as person is to think of him as a person and this would spoil all her theology. So if we ascribe personality to God, we must be careful not to let the word have any of the meaning which it does have when English speaking people use it. What is the trouble with Mrs. Eddy? Why is it that she can make such a ridiculous statement as that God is not a person but that he is personality? Why does she have to “split hairs” in this fashion? She is in a “strait betwixt two.” When necessity is the mother of invention the offspring may be something quite unnatural. She cannot say that God is a person because she does not believe this, and because such a statement would tear out the keystone of her metaphysical system and cause the whole massive structure to fall in a pile. On the other hand it would not be wise for Mrs. Eddy to tell us plainly that she is going to rob us of our beautiful conception of God as a being of will, forethought, design, moral qualities and moral relations. But this is what she is attempting to do nevertheless, and in order to perform this operation pleasantly upon us she works the trick of extracting all the meaning out of the word, and then assures us, with the assumption of great wisdom and with amazing calmness, “God is in the higher sense personal, yes, God is infinite personality.”

Why is it impossible for Mrs. Eddy to say that God is a person? Because God is infinite and infinity is to her the same as “allness”, as we have already quoted her as teaching; and to think of a person is to think of a being that is in some sense separate and apart from other beings or existences. A person or one person implies other persons or other beings. Then to think of God as a person is to think of him as an individual standing apart from other individuals or realities, and this we must not do, as God is identical with all realities.

Mrs. Eddy must dispose of God's individuality just as she does of his personality. “My child, let me make known to you a truth kept secret since the foundation of the world, but now imparted through a revelation of divine science. It is this greatly elevating truth, God is not an individual but he is individuality.”^[56] I would not trouble others or myself with these subtleties, concerning which we may be confident that neither Mrs. Eddy nor any one else can do more than speculate, were it not that we have undertaken to follow her where she follows others, though she and they all may fall into the ditch.

Look again at Mrs. Eddy's language: “The individuality of Spirit, or the infinite, is unknown, and thus a knowledge of it is left either to human conjecture or to the revelation of divine Science;”^[57] “God is individual and personal in a scientific sense, but not in any anthropomorphic sense.”^[58] There are many points of interest in these two sentences, but I note only four, namely, that Mrs. Eddy refers to spirit or God as “it”; that she understands that personality implies individuality; that God's individuality, as his personality, is in no sense like man's individuality, and that she claims that her teaching concerning the individuality of God is a “revelation of divine Science.” God is not, she affirms, an individual “in any anthropomorphic sense.”

No one would claim that God is an individual in every human respect, that is, both physically and spiritually. But the individuality of God, like his personality, if conceived at all, must be conceived as in some sense anthropomorphic. The following quotation from Mrs. Eddy shows this, of which not only the thought but the language should be considered with special care. “The term individuality is also open to objections, because an individual may be one of a series, one of many, as an individual man, an individual horse; whereas God is One, — not one of a series, but one alone and without an equal.”^[59] Mrs. Eddy has been very sly in covering up her tracks but she made a fatal blunder when she wrote that sentence down. It alone, when its full force is felt, is enough to stamp Mrs. Eddy's doctrine of God as Neoplatonic. Plotinus says: “It is not proper that it (the One) should be a certain one of those things to which it is prior;”^[60] “It is not some one of all things but is prior to all things;”^[60] “The One will not suffer itself to be numbered with another nor indeed to be numbered at all.”^[61] The meaning of Plotinus is that the “one” is not to be thought of as one of a class or series. To call it “one” in this sense, that is, as a man or a horse is one, would be to number it and this would not be proper, he thinks. Here is a striking and exact parallel in thought. Mrs. Eddy was born sixteen hundred years too late to make the revelation to us that she claims to do. Proclus follows Plotinus. He says: “The One is simply the first;”^[62] “The One of it (Providence or God) is not like an individual one.”^[63] Proclus beat Mrs. Eddy to this idea by 1400 years. These Neoplatonists were followed by Spinoza, who expresses the thought very clearly and in language which Mrs. Eddy^s language resembles, thus: “A thing can not be called one or single, unless there be afterwards another thing conceived, which (as has been said) agrees with it;” “He who calls God one or single has no true idea of God and speaks of him very improperly;” “We do not conceive things under the category of numbers, unless they first have been reduced to a common genus.”^[64] Spinoza, the world's greatest pantheist, following the Neoplatonists, beat Mrs. Eddy to this idea by 200 years, and Mrs. Eddy comes along at this late date and says it is a revelation to her. I cannot believe that she is ignorant that this idea was written down by others. Her language is best explained on the ground that she got it in some way, in some written form, from these philosophers. I repeat, she made a great blunder in writing down that sentence and claiming that the idea came by divine revelation.

I may close this point of our discussion by remarking that whether or not Mrs. Eddy is right in supposing that God must not be considered in any sense as one of a series or class, that she herself evidently is one of a series or class, namely, the class of pagan philosophers and pantheists who cannot think of God, or the first principle of all, as being in any sense limited, of whom the first and greatest in intellectual acumen was Plotinus, and the last if not the least is Mary Baker G. Eddy.

Mrs. Eddy is set against anthropomorphism or the conception of God as having the form or nature of man. She thinks this error has done much harm. Now if anthropomorphism means that God has a body like man's and only this, then the doctrine would be bad. But no real thinker has taught that. Anthropomorphism, as the word suggests, is the doctrine that God has the likeness of man. It teaches that God is in some important respects like man. If God is like man in mind but not in body then we have an anthropomorphic conception of God. Since man is like God, being created in the image of God, as Mrs. Eddy professes to believe, then God must be like man. If one is like the other, then the other is like the one. Men are sons of God as Mrs. Eddy allows. She also allows that the son is like the father. How illogical, how silly it is then to deny that the father is like the son. Again, since man, that is “immortal man”, is by Mrs. Eddy identified with God, why does she wage such a war against a man-like deity? I repeat, “it belongs to the system.” To think of God as like man is to limit him, Mrs. Eddy imagines. God is infinite and infinity is allness. Mrs. Eddy, like some theologians, has gone mad over “infinity.” The gracious fatherhood of God is sacrificed on the altar of this little idol, “Infinity,” the initial letter being capitalized for effect. Infinity is her little Dagon which she must prop up in his place lest he fall upon his face and be broken.

What is infinity? It matters not for our purpose what it is, except that if it is anything, it is a somewhat and not a somewho. We do not ask, who is infinity? for the question thus worded would not be intelligible. We could as well ask, who is what? I beg pardon of the reader for this repetition, but I want to make it clear that when Mrs. Eddy uses the word God she is talking not about a person, but about a thing, that is, an idea.

And now let us see how Mrs. Eddy deals with this subject. She says: “Human philosophy has made God manlike. Christian Science makes man Godlike. The first is error; the latter is truth;”^[65] “Error would fashion Deity in a manlike mold, while Truth is molding a Godlike man;”^[66] “God is individual and personal in a scientific sense, but not in any anthropomorphic sense.”^[67]

I do not find such general denials as these of the anthropomorphic character of God by the Neoplatonists, but I find denials to him of many specific human qualities, as we find in Christian Science, which I proceed to recount. And these are more valuable than general statements. But before doing so I give a sentence from Spinoza, who, like Mrs. Eddy, is set against all anthropomorphic conceptions of God. Like Mrs. Eddy's statements, it is general and sweeping. He says simply: God is “without any human qualities.”^[68] It is natural to ask, how could Spinoza, who identifies man with God, that is eternal man, corresponding to Mrs. Eddy's immortal man, affirm that God is wholly unlike man? It is, I repeat, on account of the system. God is infinite and must not be thought of in any sense as finite. Mrs. Eddy has his standpoint exactly. Both are pantheists. Both identify man with God. Both teach that God is unlike man in every respect, though man is the image and likeness of God, and do so for the same reason, namely, to make secure their idol. Infinity, and both follow the Neoplatonists. If Mrs. Eddy teaches elsewhere anything contrary to this, it does not prove that she does not teach this, which the quotations show that she does teach. It is not my business to harmonize her contradictions. Her followers may attempt that. But I am careful not to misrepresent her, however much she may misrepresent herself.

And now we turn to the specific human qualities that are denied to God.

The first in order relates to the character of the divine mind.

Mrs. Eddy teaches that God is a being without will. In opposing and rejecting theism she says: “Reason and will are human, God is divine. In academics and religion, it is patent that will is capable of use and of abuse, of right and wrong action, while God is incapable of evil.”^[69] I am aware that Mrs. Eddy says that will may designate a quality of the divine mind. She is forced to this confession since she finds the expression “will of God” in the Bible; but she explains, however, that the will of God means “the might and wisdom of God.”^[70] Thus she would extract all the meaning out of the will of God, as she does out of his personality. She will not let the word, when applied to God, mean what it means when English-speaking people and psychologists use it. She makes it mean the same as knowing or understanding and robs it of its main use, which is to express purpose. So Mrs. Eddy can say: “With God, knowledge is necessarily foreknowledge and foreknowledge and foreordination must be one in an Infinite Being. What Deity foreknows, Deity must fore-ordain, else He is not omnipotent, and, like ourselves. He foresees events which are contrary to His creative will, yet which he cannot avert.”^[71] For God then to ordain, to decree, to purpose is the same as to know. The ground for this speculation is found in Proclus. He says: “It is not lawful for him (Demiurgus or Creator) to will some things and produce others (contrary to his will); since will and productive energy are simultaneous in divine essences.”^[72] When it is learned that the productive or creative energy in both Christian Science and Neoplatonism is intellect or understanding, as will be seen later, it will be clear that Mrs. Eddy reproduces the thought of Proclus. I find the doctrine stated more positively, however, in Spinoza, who argues that if we should compare the divine intellect and will with the human intellect and will “there would be about as much correspondence between the two as there is between the Dog, the heavenly constellation, and a dog, an animal that barks”; and so he concludes that “neither intellect nor will appertains to God's nature.”^[73] What he means is that we should not distinguish in the divine mind intellect and will; that in God they are one. But in the following language from Spinoza we have not only the meaning of the foregoing but also a more striking parallel to Mrs. Eddy's position: “This seems to have been recognized by those who have asserted, that God's intellect, God's will, and God's power, are one and the same.”^[74] Spinoza knew that some before him identified God's will with his power or might and again resolved his power into his intellect. It is easy to see that to those, who regard only the mental as real, all power must be simply intellectual energy. Spinoza, it seems, refers to the Neoplatonists. Mrs. Eddy holds that “all might is divine Mind.”^[75] Proclus says: “If being willing to make his fabrications indissoluble, he (the Demiurgus or creator) does not possess the power of effecting this, we must separate his will from his power, which would be absurd.”^[76]

Mrs. Eddy denies to God such knowledge as is commonly ascribed to men.

In connection with the above quotation from Spinoza and Proclus it should be recalled that in one of the quotations from Mrs. Eddy she denies “reason” to God. She does not mean by this term the highest kind of knowledge, which is understanding or consciousness, for this she in many places ascribes to God. If she knows what she is saying, which I grant, she is distinguishing between the “discursive reason”, or that kind of human knowledge which is obtained by a reasoning process, and the knowledge of God which is always immediate or intuitive, or is simply consciousness. In the quotation from Spinoza, just given, in which he says “intellect” does not appertain to God's nature, he is making this very point. He, too, holds that God's knowledge is always immediate or intuitive knowledge or consciousness. The foundation for this strange speculation—and one could hardly discover a finer specimen of speculation is found in the statement of Plotinus, that there arises from or pertains to the “good” “an intellect not such as we possess.”^[77]

I am here anticipating the discussion of Mrs. Eddy's psychology and need not now trace the comparison further. In dismissing the matter now I wish to note for the benefit of the reader that the way is being prepared by means of this kind of psychology for the teaching of the Neoplatonists, Spinoza and Mrs. Eddy, that God has no knowledge of deformity, discord or evil.

Now since Mrs. Eddy denies so much knowledge to God we ask, why did she not deny all knowledge to him? Since she rejects an anthropomorphic God, how is it that she permits her god to have any kind of knowledge, since knowledge is a quality of human beings? Mrs. Eddy should have followed the Neoplatonists consistently to the end. Plotinus denies all knowledge to the one or the good. For knoweledge requires the act of discrimination or differentiation and in all knowledge there are two things, a cognizing subject and a cognized object. Now this is the recognition of multiplicity but unity can not know plurality. For the one to know anything is to become multiplex and this is self-annihilation. By this metaphysical pole-vaulting we see how the one occupies a summit of existence higher than knowledge.^[78]

Sublime logic this, that makes the first being of all an ignoramus! It is splendid dialetical gymnastics. It is a strange kind of “divine utterance” that would render the deity a dumheit. But this is inexorable logic if all human qualities are denied to God and if only unity is real and multiplicity, which is implied in knowledge, is unreal. It is interesting to see how Mrs. Eddy, blind or seeing, follows these philosophic idolaters, who work for us this sleight-of-mind performance, up to a certain point and then stops short. She is vaulting on the same pole with them but either can not or will not jump quite so high. In this feature of the entertainment she appears to be rather weak or timid. The Neoplatonists get further from the earth than does Mrs. Eddy. In other words, they are somewhat less materialistic than she is. In this instance Mrs. Eddy fears to loosen all the strings to her balloon. Mrs. Eddy was either not smart enough to see what the Neoplatonists saw or was too smart to break with her constituency. It may seem very pretty to say that God knows no such thing as sin, sickness and death. But who could endure her saying that God does not know anything? Still it ought to occur to anyone who thinks twice that not to know evil is not to know good; that not to know sin, sickness and death, is not to know goodness, health and life; that not to know darkness is not to know light; that not to know “straight down” is not to know “straight up”; that not to know error is not to know truth; that not to know the negative is not to know the positive; that a knowledge that does not recognize opposites and contradictories is no knowledge at all. I repeat, Mrs. Eddy joins the Neoplatonists in presenting to us a dumb deity, though very naturally, she does not so plainly describe her idol.

Mrs. Eddy, like her masters, teaches that God exists in an active state only and never in a passive state. It may be easily seen how this doctrine follows logically from their adoration of their idol, Infinity. Since their god is identical with “allness” there can be nothing outside of it to act upon it. So it is never acted upon but is ever active. We are in the habit of thinking of a person being the active agent and of a thing being the passive recipient, but these pantheists, as usual, demand that we reverse this mental process; and if we hesitate to walk backwards at their command they tell us politely that we are “dense”, and some are so meek as to respond to this “word of the oracle” by falling down and worshipping, saying, “Behold, how wonderful is this divine wisdom. No man nor woman ever so spake before.” It should occur to them that, if they were so dull as to have believed error all their lives, maybe they are at it still, which very thing I am proving. And from henceforth, if they say, “never man or woman so spake,” it is not an innocent but a wilful blindness that they are afflicted with. Indeed, some are about ready to believe that Christian Scientists are the best illustration of the proverb that “None are so blind as those that will not see.”

Having “preached” this little bit, if you please, I turn to the language of Mrs. Eddy. She says: “The divine Mind includes all action;”^[79] God is “omni-action;”^[80] “Immortal Mind is ever active;”^[81] “God rests in action;”^[82] “There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause.”^[83] Plotinus holds that being and energy (or activity) are one^[84] and that energies and essences of intellect are the same.^[85] Proclus states the same principle more clearly when he says: “That which is in energy is perfect,”^[86] and “that which in capacity (or inactivity) * * * is imperfect.”^[87] And Spinoza states the doctrine more clearly than does Mrs. Eddy, when he says: “It is as impossible for us to conceive God as not acting, as to conceive him as non-existing,”^[88] and that God “cannot be passive.”^[89] That Mrs. Eddy simply reproduces the thought of the Neoplatonists and Spinoza is evident.

From this metaphysical principle that God is ever active and never passive, several conclusions are logically drawn by the Neoplatonists and Mrs. Eddy, two of which I proceed to give, showing Mrs. Eddy's dependence on them.

The first is that the divine being does not suffer. Distinguishing Christ from Jesus, who, she confesses, suffered, Mrs. Eddy says: “The eternal Christ, his spiritual selfhood, never suffered.”^[90] Plotinus says: “It (being or that which always is in contrast with anything that begins to be or has a temporal existence) suffers nothing.”^[91] Spinoza says: God is not “susceptible of passions.”^[92] Some teachers of the Bible are found stating with a show of profoundness that the divine nature cannot suffer. They ought to learn that the Bible teaches no such thing but that pagan philosophy does, whence it came to Mrs. Eddy and to a few theologians also who in this matter are more under the sway of Plato than Christ.

If God cannot suffer it must follow that he cannot have sympathy, that is, he cannot suffer with human beings who do suffer. Nearly every one is astonished when he first learns that Christian Scientists teach that we should not sympathize with those that are in pain. No, the mother must not even kiss the bruised head of her boy nor say, “My darling, mama knows it hurts.” Do not condemn too severely such a mother; she is working out Christian Science, she is consistent, she is metaphysical. “For to sympathize with the child is to recognize the existence of pain and this might lead to the inference that he has a material head in which pain is located, and this would spoil all our splendid theories, don't you see?” Christian Science compels its devotees so to reason, for its mission is to “make man God-like” and God cannot sympathize with those that suffer, for he cannot even recognize the existence of pain. So Mrs. Eddy says: “He could not destroy our woes totally if He possessed any knowledge of them. His sympathy is divine, not human.”^[93]

A sympathy that arises without the recognition even of the pain of the sufferer is no sympathy at all. A sympathy that has in it no element of suffering is not sympathy. Why then speak of divine sympathy when there is not a point of similarity in it to human sympathy? This is another of Mrs. Eddy's verbal tricks, as the following quotation reveals: “Sympathy with sin, sorrow, and sickness would dethrone God as Truth, for Truth has no sympathy for error.”^[94] As the sentence stands it does not make sense. Let us change the verbal form so as to state boldly what the thought really is and read it thus: “Sympathy with one, who is in sin, sorrow or sickness, would dethrone God, for God, who is a being of truth, has no sympathy for one who is in error, sin, sorrow or sickness.” It would dethrone God to sympathize or suffer with any one, for suffering implies passivity or weakness, as the Neoplatonists and Spinoza and Mrs. Eddy reason. Spinoza defines sympathy as he does pity, namely, “pain accompanied by the idea of evil.”^[95] He is following Plotinus who classes pity with “vices, envies, jealousies,”^[96] etc., in short with all those passions that arise on account of the body. To Spinoza the “idea of evil” is a false notion, as it is to Mrs. Eddy; and to Plotinus the body is a nonentity, as it is to Mrs. Eddy. They all are “making time” on the same track, but Mrs. Eddy is far in the rear. And notwithstanding her slow gait she can receive neither sympathy nor pity from her god, nor can she obtain forgiveness for her false boast that she is leading in the race, for her god does not know any of these unfortunate things.

The second inference is that God does not answer prayer and the only benefit of prayer is what may be termed its reflex influence. Mrs. Eddy says: “The mere habit of pleading with the divine Mind as one pleads with a human being, perpetuates the belief in God as humanly circumscribed,—an error which impedes spiritual growth;”^[97] “God is not influenced by man;”^[98] “Prayer cannot change the Science of being, but it tends to bring us into harmony with it;”^[99] “Do we expect to change perfection?”^[100] By this kind of reasoning prayer is not prayer but simply meditation. Again we have the use of an English word with all its meaning extracted. Mrs. Eddy should say simply that she rejects prayer and substitutes for it meditation. Consider that the perfection she is thinking of is not the perfection of the divine character or of a personal God, but the perfection which she attributes to the universe. She cannot think of God as we think of a great and good man whose very perfection and permanency of character and whose moral worth are revealed in his yielding to the cry of the weak and needy. Mrs. Eddy's divine perfection is nothing but the order and harmony of the universe which she imagines is, has been and ever will be perfect. So to ask for what is not or will not be is to pray for what is supposed to be discord or evil, and as these cannot possibly be, prayer is a waste of breath. Do not forget that Mrs. Eddy is a pantheist. Her god is something impersonal. She says also of praise: “God is not moved by the breath of praise to do more than he has already done.”^[101]

Thus with one rude stroke, but with a great flourish of philosophy and rhetoric, this would-be originator of a new religion would make prayer and praise, the heart of all worship and the spring of all piety, ridiculous and impossible except in the ignorant and superstitious. What man with sense will stand up to praise a being or a thing that is indifferent or bow down to ask for what he knows he cannot by virtue of the asking obtain? Here the sarcasm as well as the logic of Henry Ward Beecher is to the point. “I cannot say my prayers to the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, any more than I could to a proposition in Euclid. You might as well tell me that three angles make a triangle, ‘Now worship!’ ”^[102]

In nothing more than in the matter we are now considering is the anti-Christian character of Christian Science revealed. From these sentences alone one may see that it is pure and simple infidelity.

But we are concerned only secondarily with the truth or falsity of Mrs. Eddy's doctrine and primarily with her claim that she discovered it inside the Bible or received it as a direct revelation from God. Everybody who knows enough to talk on the subject, knows that this metaphysical vagary is not in the Bible; and the other question is settled for us when we discover that it is a speculation of the Neoplatonists and Spinoza. So let us hear them. Proclus says: “A conversion to the whole imparts salvation to everything” and “to this conversion prayer is of the greatest utility.”^[103] What he means by “conversion to the whole” is coming into unity with the universal order or bringing oneself by the power of right thinking into a condition of harmony with the universe. This is “salvation,” he says. This may seem to the reader a strange meaning for the word “salvation.” But it means with Proclus just what it means with Spinoza and Mrs. Eddy, namely, a correct understanding of things, all things, the universe.^[104] This then is the nature and end of prayer; meditation or contemplation continued until our minds are enlightened sufficiently to see the harmony of universal nature. Spinoza says: “Nor do I deny that prayer is extremely useful to us. For my understanding is too small to determine all the means, whereby God leads men to the love of Himself, that is, to salvation. So far is my opinion from being hurtful, that it offers to those, who are not taken up with prejudices and childish superstitions, the only means for arriving at the highest stage blessedness.”^[105] Spinoza, like Mrs. Eddy, identifies our love of God with understanding God or truth, as I will show later. I will also show that to Proclus and Spinoza salvation or the highest blessedness is nothing else than intellectual knowledge or perfect understanding. But the reader may be able already to grasp this; at any rate he can see for himself that Spinoza affirms that prayer is “extremely useful to us” in that it leads us to love God, and that it is the “only means for arriving at the highest stage of blessedness.” He could not teach that God answers our prayers and gives us for the asking a blessing (such hope as this he brands, it seems, as “prejudices and childish superstitions”), for God is without “any human qualities” and “cannot be passive”, that is, affected by anything. Spinosa thinks of God as something impersonal, as Mrs. Eddy does. He cannot then be changed, for to change this kind of perfection is to render it imperfect. It would turn perfection into imperfection. Hear Mrs. Eddy once more: “Prayer can neither change God nor bring His designs into mortal modes; but it can and does change our modes and our false sense of Life, Love, Truth, uplifting us to Him.”^[106] It would be difficult to find a more perfect parallel than we here discern between Christian Science and Neoplatonism.

I may sum up most of what has been said concerning the non-personality of the god of Mrs. Eddy and the Neoplatonists by saying simply that they present to us an indifferent deity. He desires nothing, he is displeased with nothing; for if he desired anything he would lack something and be thereby imperfect, and if he were displeased with anything he would be affected from a power without his own being and would not be infinite and omnipotent. They understand divine perfection and infinity in a way that renders the deity absolutely indifferent. So Plotinus can say: “The good itself is without desire,”^[107] and “the life of the gods and of divine and happy men * * * is a life unaccompanied with human pleasures.”^[108] And Spinoza can say: “Neither the honest man nor the thief can cause God any pleasure or displeasure,”^[109] and “it cannot be said that God desires anything of any man, or that anything is displeasing or pleasing to Him: all these are human qualities and have no place in God.”^[110] Mrs. Eddy teaches that to God there is no evil. From this it must follow that to God there is nothing good, and so Plotinus reasons: “To the one nothing is good, and, therefore neither is the wish for anything good to it.”^[111] Mrs. Eddy shrinks from stating her doctrine so boldly and honestly. But that this is her doctrine can be seen from the quotations already given.

To give point to much that has just been said and to put it so its force will be felt I will say that Mrs. Eddy's deity is incapable of love. This may seem contrary to fact since one of Mrs. Eddy's synonyms for God is love.^[112] According to Mrs. Eddy's idea of love, since she follows Spinoza and the Neoplatonists in identifying it with the highest kind of knowing or with understanding, as will be proved, we may say that God loves. That is, we may say that God loves when loves does not mean love. But English-speaking people and psychologists mean by unselfish, holy and divine love, a desire to benefit its object. It is an affection. But Mrs. Eddy's god would be imperfect if he had desire. For if he desires to have what he now has not, either he lacks something good, or he wants something bad and in either case he becomes imperfect. And if he desires to give what he has not already bestowed, then he has hitherto failed to impart what is good or he now wants to inflict evil on his creatures and this likewise renders him imperfect. Again, if Mrs. Eddy's god has an affection, that is, if he were affected by anything he would be finite and no god at all. So her Dagon, Infinity, is loveless, and is incapable of affection, for it is lifeless. When she calls it “Love” and “Life” she is doing just what all idolaters do in putting into their gods human qualities, just what Mrs. Eddy says we should not do. A principle, even though we may call it love, does not love. It is a person only that can love and does love. If we were dependent upon her mere words we would not know when to believe her. But since we have an understanding of her principles we know when to believe her words and when not. In spite of all the props, poor Dagon falls prostrate and his head is broken off. Oh ye Philistines, gather ye together in Ashdod and consider how to piece together again your dismembered divinity.

Before concluding this chapter we recall Mrs. Eddy's fear that principle, the best name for her deity, may seem cold and distant. So it does, and her denial does not change the fact. What she means may be expressed thus: “My child, do not fear this iceberg, it may seem cold and unsympathetic, but it is not. Draw near to it. Come into its embrace. At first it may chill you. But abide there for a time and when the temperature of your body is brought into harmony with it, there will be no disagreeable sensation at all.” That is quite true. When one is frozen stiff he is apt to be without pain or feeling of any kind.

Finally these words of Beecher are again to the point: “I believe in God and never for a moment have I faltered in believing in a personal God, as distinguished from a Pantheistic God, whether it is the coarser Pantheism of materialism, believing that the material universe is God, or the more subtle view of Matthew Arnold, who holds that God is nothing but a tendency in the universe—a something that is not me that tends towards righteousness. Well, I would rather chew thistledown all summer long than to work with any such idea as that.”^[113]

Christian Science is idealistic idolatry. It worships a man-made divinity though not embodied in material form. A god that is invented by the human mind is one degree better than a god that is formed by the human hand, but that is all.

1. S. and H. p. 213.
2. 6. 9. 4. Tr. by Fuller.
3. S. and H. p. 115.
4. No and Yes. p. 29.
5. Cf. No and Yes. p. 47, and S. and H. p. 113.
6. S. and H. p. 113. cf. p. 52 and p. 76. cf. No and Yes. p. 45.
7. S. and H. p. 119.
8. Cf. 6. 7. 38.
9. 1 John 4:8.
10. 1 John 1:5.
11. Cf. Ueberweg's Geschichte der Philosophie. Vol. I, p. 356.
12. Cf. Windelband's Hist. of Phil. 2. 2. 20. 7.
13. 6. 9.
14. 6. 9. 5.
15. Cf. Works of Plotinus. p. 323.
16. Cf. Eth. 1. Def. 3 and 1. 11.
17. Cf. Windelband's Hist. of Phil. 2. 2. 20. 2.
18. S. and H. p. 129.
19. S. and H. p. 27. cf. p. 259.
20. No and Yes. p. 47.
21. S. and H. p. 119.
22. S. and H. p. 465 f. cf. p. 109.
23. S. and H. p. 336.
24. S. and H. p. 109.
25. Cf. Ch. Sc. vs. Pan. p. 6ff.
26. Cf. Eth. 1. 29. Note. cf. Windelband's Hist. of Phil. 4. 2. 31. 5.
27. Ch. Sc. vs. Pan. p. 18. cf. S. and H. p. 114.
28. Cf. S. and H. pp. 204, 250, 281.
29. Hist. of Phil. p. 409.
30. 5. 2. 1. Tr. by Fuller.
31. 5. 9. 6. Tr. by Fuller.
32. Nat. of Evil. 3. (p. 144.)
33. S. and H. p. 257.
34. On Tim. Bk. 2. (Vol. I. p. 302.)
35. On Tim. Bk. 2. (Vol. I. p. 225.)
36. On Tim. Bk. 2. (Vol. I. p. 236.)
37. S. and H. p. 256.
38. S. and H. p. 502f.
39. S. and H. p. 512.
40. S. and H. p. 206.
41. S. and H. p. 361.
42. S. and H. p. 250.
43. 1. 7. Tr. by Fuller.
44. 1. 6. Tr. by Fuller.
45. 2. 1. Tr. by Fuller.
46. 2. 2. Tr. by Fuller.
47. 5. 2. 1. Tr. by Fuller.
48. Hist. of Phil. 2. 2. 20. 7.
49. S. and H. p. 336.
50. Cf. S. and H. pp. 256 and 331f.
51. No and Yes p. 28f.
52. No and Yes p. 28.
53. S. and H. p. 517.
54. Cf. pp. 20 and 227.
55. S. and H. p. 116.
56. Cf. S. and H. p. 330.
57. S. and H. p. 330.
58. S. and H. p. 336f.
59. S. and H. p. 117.
60. 5. 3. 11.
61. 5. 5. 4.
62. Theo. Ele. 100.
63. Prov. 1. (p. 7f.)
64. All in Letter, 50.
65. S. and H. p. 269.
66. No and Yes. p. 29.
67. S. and H. p. 336f.
68. Letter, 34.
69. Ch. Sc. vs. Pan. p. 7. cf. S. and H. p. 111.
70. S. and H. p. 597.
71. Unity of Good. p. 22.
72. Nat. of Evil. 1. (p. 78.)
73. Eth. 1. 17. Note.
74. Eth. 1. 17, note.
75. S. and H. p. 310.
76. On Tim. Bk. 5 (Vol. II. p. 346.)
77. 1. 8. 2. cf. 5. 3. 11; 5. 3. 13; 5. 6. 6. and 6. 9. 6. cf. Porphyry in Aux. 26; and Proclus in Prov. 1. (p. 4.)
78. Cf. Plotinus 6. 9. 6.
79. S. and H. p. 187.
80. S. and H. p. 587.
81. S. and H. p. 387.
82. S. and H. p. 519.
83. S. and H. p. 207.
84. Cf. 5. 9. 8.
85. Cf. 5. 3. 12.
86. On Tim. Bk. 2. (Vol. I. p. 250.)
87. Theo. Ele. 77.
88. Eth. 2. 3. Note.
89. Eth. 1. 15. Note.
90. S. and H. p. 38. cf. p. 582.
91. 3. 7. 4. cf. Porphyry, Aux. 22.
92. Eth. 1. 15. Note.
93. No and Yes. p. 39.
94. No and Yes. p. 40.
95. Eth. 3. Definitions of the Emotions, 18, and Explanation.
96. 1. 1. 10.
97. S. and H. p. 2.
98. S. and H. p. 7.
99. S. and H. p. 2.
100. S. and H. p. 2. cf. p. 3.
101. S. and H. p. 2. cf. p. 12.
102. A Treasury of Illustration, p. 241.
103. On Tim. Bk. 2. (Vol. I. p. 176 and p. 178.)
104. Later this matter will be taken up. But now cf. S. and H. p. 39.
105. Letter 34.
106. No and Yes. p. 49.
107. 3. 8. 11. cf. 6. 9. 6.
108. 6. 9. 11.
109. Letter 36. cf. Letter 32.
110. Letter 36.
111. 6. 9. 6.
112. Cf. S. and H. pp. 115 and 465.
113. A Treasury of Illustration, p. 242.