Posted by:
cser
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Date: February 26, 2017 09:21PM
Some things written by Alfred Farlow (who was head of the Christian Science Church's "Committee on Publication," set up by Mary Baker Eddy) may be relevant to this thread. One of the activities of the Committee on Publication is to correct public misconceptions about Christian Science, and Farlow had Eddy's personal guidance in doing this. Thus it is interesting to read how he spoke about the Christian Science view of matter to people.
In a 1904 article in the Boston Times, Farlow wrote:
"...one [critic of Christian Science] lately said, 'The basic teaching of Christian Science is that there is no matter,' when in fact this abstract statement is a rather remote conclusion which is neither understood nor acceptable to the individual unless he first has some knowledge of the premise upon which it is based. ... Even a Christian Scientist would stumble over this ... if he were not previously prepared for it.
"The statement, 'there is no matter,' standing alone and independent of any qualification, seems to mean that everything that we see, -- the entire creation, -- is non-existent, while in truth Christian Science teaches that all things, from the least to the greatest, are real, though not what they seem to the peculiar sense of those who have not yet learned to perceive them as God made them, and as they really are." (Quoted in Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority, pages 302 - 303.)
Farlow also wrote something similar in an article titled "There is no matter":
"[Christian Science] does not teach that the visible universe is an illusion, but that each created thing, from the least to the greatest, is real, though not what it seems to the concept of those who have not learned to regard it from a spiritual viewpoint." (Christian Science Sentinel, December 31, 1904, page 278
Another quote from Farlow. This is from an article he wrote for the Greenburg, PA Star, which was reprinted on page 38 of the September 17, 1904 Christian Science Sentinel:
"Scarcely a criticism appears on the subject of Christian Science which does not include an allegation to the effect that Christian Science teaches that all creation is an illusion, and that man has no body.
"This erroneous belief regarding the premise of Christian Science leads to ridiculous conclusions. This Science does not teach the unreality of any perceptible thing, but raises the question as to what it really is. It is not the phenomena of nature which are denied by Christian Science, but the humanized, material sense of them. Christian Science interprets the nature and consistency of creation from a spiritual view-point and teaches one to know it as God made it, and as it appears to Him. ...
"As a matter of fact, a Christian Scientist, having some insight into the spirituality of God's creation, beholds in nature a new beauty and satisfaction. As one grows spiritually, the things on earth will not disappear, but will become more vivid, even as an object beheld through a veil presents fairer and stronger outlines when the covering is lifted. The perishable, imperfect things which we now view will be discerned in all their spirituality, beauty, and perfection as our erroneous, human concepts disappear. Nature will be seen as bearing the imprint of the divine Mind, the Supreme Being."
Here are a couple of quotations from a biography of Mary Baker Eddy by Stephen Gottschalk titled Rolling Away the Stone:
From page 165:
...for Eddy, the denial of the reality of matter as a consequence of the primacy and infinitude of Spirit did not wipe out the reality of nature and the meaning of present experience. She used an ordinary object to ask an extraordinary question: "Is a stone spiritual?" "To erring material sense," she wrote, "No!" But to a more accurate spiritual perception, she continued, the only actual existence of a stone, as "a small manifestation of Mind [God]," is spiritual. ... She then reached the bottom line of her metaphysics: "The only logical conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from the rolling of worlds in the most subtle ether, to a potato-patch."
That "potato-patch" does not fit into the conventional Christian cosmology that pictures two kinds of reality: the ultimate reality of God and his kingdom into which we will pass after death, as well as the immediate, tangible reality of the human condition in which we now dwell. God's universe, she said, is the only actual creation, and it is really here in all its multifarious expressions of life and varieties of form, color, and outline. She insisted that it is human limitation alone that mistakes the true spiritual nature of that universe by defining it as mortal and material.
And from page 31 of Gottschalk's biography:
Eddy did hold that reality is, in truth, spiritual -- that matter is not objectively substantial, but represents a finite, limited view of God's creation, which is spiritual and solidly present. But far from an assertion that all we experience is unreal -- that there are no rocks, mountains, flowers, or trees, or that others whom we encounter and love do not exist -- her view was akin to Paul's statement that 'we see through a glass darkly.'