Vol. 7, No. 2, 1990

First Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science)

Founder: Mary Baker Eddy

Organized: August 23, 1879

Current Membership: 170,000

Current Headquarters: Boston, Massachusetts

Man

"There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is his image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual," (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 21)

Salvation

"Final deliverance from error,... is not reached... by pinning one's faith without works to another's vicarious effort," (Science and Health, p. 22).

"In Christian Science it is plain that God removes the punishment for sin only as the sin is removed... hence the hope of universal salvation. ... To lose the sense of sin we must first detect the claim of sin; hold it invalid... sin disappears, and its unreality is proven," (Message, 1901, p. 13).

Material & Bible

"...the thirty thousand different readings in the old Testament, and the three hundred thousand in the New, - these facts show how a mortal and material sense stole into the divine record..." (Science and Health, p. 139).

"Students who strictly adhere to the right, and make the Bible and Science and Health a study, are in no danger of mistaking their way," (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 284).

Witness Tips

Due to the belief that all is Spirit and matter is an illusion, Christian Science denies the reality of sickness and death. Demonstrate both death and matter's legitimacy.

Because they affirm God to be an impersonal concept, use Universal Ethics. Some things are wrong in all situations, this is a Universalism, and an impersonal concept cannot impart such Ethics to personal Beings, such as Man.

Trinity

"The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a personal trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one ever-present I am," (Science and Health with Key to the Scripture, p. 256). "Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune Person called God, -- that is, the triply divine Principle, Love. They represent a trinity in unity, three in one, -- the same in essence, though multiform in office: God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual idea of sonship; divine Science or the Holy Comforter," (Ibid, p. 331).

Father

"The Science of divine metaphysics removes the mysticism that used to enthrall my sense of the Godhead, and of Jesus as the Son of God and the son of man. Christian Science explains the nature of God as both Father and Mother," (Message to The Mother Church, 1901 p. 10). "...these refer not to personality, but present the type and shadow of Truth's appearing in the womanhood as well as in the manhood of God, our divine Father and Mother," (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 33).

Son

"The Virgin-mother conceived this idea of God, and gave to her ideal the name of Jesus.... Jesus is the name of the man who, more than all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of God.... Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus the Christ," (Science and Health, pp. 29 & 473). "Christ, or the spiritual idea, appeared to human consciousness as the man Jesus," (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 93). "The spiritual Christ was infallible; Jesus, as material manhood, was not Christ," (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 84).

Holy Ghost

"This Science of God and man is the Holy Ghost, which reveals and sustains the unbroken and eternal harmony of both God and the universe," (Unity of Good, p. 52). "Holy Ghost. Divine Science; the development of eternal Life, Truth, and Love," (Science and Health, p. 588).