0.0 – Christian Science – 16 Books by Mary Baker Eddy – 11 – Christian Science versus Pantheism

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In a thousand different ways Miscellaneous Writings brings home the message that \"God is All, in all\" (Mis. 26). All there is to our lives, our bodies, our relationships, is some activity of God. The divine All enters into the minutiae of all because we can never be outside of His allness. Does this mean, then, that God is in material things, or that in God\'s allness evil exists along with good? Clearly not, according to Christian Science, yet taking some of Mrs Eddy\'s words out of context might lead to such a misunderstanding, depending on how one approaches this \'all.\' From the standpoint of Spirit one can say, \"God is All,\" and that is Christian Science. But if from the standpoint of the material senses one were to say, \"all is God,\" that would be pantheism. When the Boston Herald in 1898 carried criticism of her use of the term \'pantheism\' she sent the Editor \"a correction\" regarding it: \"God, Spirit, is All-in-all, therefore there is no matter.\" To settle the issue conclusively Mrs Eddy composed her annual Communion Message to The Mother Church in 1898 on the subject, \"Not Pantheism, but Christian Science.\" It was the first of these Communion Messages to be printed as a little book, no doubt because of the need to give it wide publicity. The argument runs like this: traditional theistic Christianity has a personal God as one thing and a material man as another thing; it claims that God, Spirit, is the infinite good and then allows evil to be another power. Through these inconsistencies it virtually has more than one God, more than one mind. Therefore it is old theology, rather than Christian Science, which is pantheistic. Christian Science, on the contrary, is true monotheism; this infinite Spirit means one spiritual creation, one substance, one law, and no reality in anything else. Furthermore because it is scientific Christianity it demonstrates this proposition through its ability to heal and save. This prosaic summary may show the logic of the book, but to be moved by its inspiration and force one needs Mrs Eddy\'s own words.
See Mary Baker Eddy\'s Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

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