VoL. XXX BROOKLYN, N. Y., SEPTEMBER 15, 1909 No. 18 VIEWS FROM THE WATCH TOWER DR. AKED’S CONGRATULATIONS The churches may now add to Mr. Rockefeller’s responsibility for the taint of wealth, that through his university he hag tainted the nation’s theology. George Burman Foster has finally been ousted from membership in the Chicago conference of Baptist ministers, But he still remains a member and a minister of that de. nomination, as well as the professor of comparative religions in what is generally known as Mr. Rockefeller’s Baptist University. It was a merry war, filled with expletives and unchurchly heat, which ended Mr. Foster’s ministerial affiliation. But now comes Dr. Aked, pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist church of New York, “the Rockefeller church,” and agrees with the professor, though he can see no excuse for a book dealing with the fundamental tenets of the Christian religion, and “dashed off in thirty days,” like a best seller. He approves, however, of its purpose, which he says was to supplant the foundations of the faith of our fathers with something unbelievers may believe, but which more likely was to put cash in a purse that felt a money hunger. Dr, Aked also congratulates “the whole church of God” upon the admission to the Presbyterian ministry of three young men who refused to accept the birth of Christ as miraculous, or the story of Adam and Eve as told in Genesis, or some of the miracles of the New Testament as authentic. He calls them “young men who think and are prepared to advance in the fulness of Christian thought and Evolution.” —Duluth News Tribune. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC REPLY TO CHRISTIAN SCIENCE “Current Literature,” presents briefly the Roman Catholic reply to Christian Science, as set forth by the Rev. L, A. Lambert, LL. D., as per the following extract :— According to Mr. McCracken, “Christian Science teaches that there is but one God, a God who is Infinite Spirit and Creator, the universe, including man, consisting of an infinite number of expressions of this One Spirit.” This conception of God seems to approach the Christian concept; but actually, Dr. Lambert contends, it is something very different. As he puts it: “You say, ‘God is Infinite Spirit’, Why not say an Infinite Spirit? Why persist in avoiding the individual] article an? You say, ‘God is Infinite Creator,’ but in the same sentence you deny that he is Creator when you say the universe, man included, consists of an infinite number of expressions of the One Spirit, or God. If by ‘expression’ you mean that the universe, with all its phenomena of changes and individuations, is only subjective changes and evolvements of the Deity, you should say it frankly, as the Pantheists do, and take your place among them, and drop the word Creator from your philosophy. If you mean by the word Creator what Christian philosophy means by it—the production by God, from nothing, of things distinct from himself—you should drop the term ‘expression’ and use the word Creator. Exact science does not tolerate the use of both these terms in the same sense. Not the least objection to Christian Scientists is their misuse or vague, non-committal use of terms; it is characteristic of all their literature.” Christian Science, Mr. McCrackan asserts, “does not deny the existence of the universe. It does not question the reality of a single object in the universe. But it teaches that this reality is an expression of mind, and not matter.” But this statement, Dr. Lambert holds, isa mere subterfuge. “There can be no doubt,” he observes, “that Christian Science denies the reality of the universe in the sense that Christians affirm it. In saying it is an expression of mind they deny its creation; in saying it is not matter they contradict the common sense of mankind.” The argument proceeds: “Christian Science denies the real existence of the typewriter by means of which Mr. McCrackan wrote his letter, and the paper on which he wrote it, and the train that brought it to us. All these, it tells us, are mere mental expressions, having no real existence outside of and distinct from the Divine Mind. The bullet that entered the body of President McKinley was only an idea of a bullet existing in the Divine Mind,, as was also the President, and the assassin who killed him, and the chair in which the assassin sat to receive the idea of a death shock from an idea of electricity, is only the idea of a death, existing nowhere but in the Divine Mind. And the human mind that believes in the material reality of the bullet that killed, and the wretch who shot it, and the chair that he sat in, and the electricity that killed him, is, according to Christian Seience, a mind victimized by delusions and hallucinations. The assassination was, in reality, only a clash of incompatible ideas in the Divine mind, and one of them went down into the idea of a grave, which also exists only in the Divine Mind; and the V—49 [4471] idea of a government of the State of New York sent the other antagonistic idea to the Divine idea of a grave. And the idea of the world will continue to revolve—in the One Mind—as heretofore.” From this fantastic statement of the implications of Christian Science, Dr. Lambert passes on to an affirmation that the new creed is sheer Pantheism. The very essence of Pantheism, according to his definition, is the denial of the creative act. “Those who hold to that ism,” he remarks, “do not say that God is in matter, but that all that is, is God; that all the phenomena of which we are conscious are but the visible unfolding of the Divine nature, as the rose unfolds itself, all unconscious of what it does; and this universe, as seen by us, is to God what the surface of the ocean is to the ocean, whose waves and bubbles rise and fall back into it, never ceasing in al) their changes to be a part of it. Pantheism looks on the universe and all its changes—including thought—~as phases or forms of the Divine Being, evolving and ever to evolve or unfold, by a fatal necessity.” But this is precisely what Christian Science teaches. Addressing himself directly to Mr. MeCrackan, Dr. Lambert says: “As you deny the existence of all spirits except the Infinite Spirit, and deny the existence of the material world also, there remains nothing in existence but the Infinite Spirit; hence you can, by the term ‘expression,’ mean only some form, state or change of this Spirit himself. The term ‘expression,’ then, in your sense, clashes with creation; it goes further, and denies creation, leaving nothing but subjective change, development or evolvement of the Infinite Being. This is Pantheism pure and simple. You may not intend this, but it is the inevitable conclusion from your Christian Science principles. “You confirm this conclusion when you say: ‘The only real universe is mental. Things are thoughts.’ That is, thoughts in the mind of God. If things are nothing more than thoughts, existing only in the Divine Mind, then things—this universe— are eternal, for God’s thoughts are eternal and unchangeable. Consequently, there never has been a creation; for, had there been, there would be something more than thoughts. There would be thoughts plus their realization in time and space by the creative act. You see, then, that when you deny the existence of everything but thought, you deny creation. It will not do to say that God created his thoughts, for that would necessarily imply that he had to do something—-create—before he could think—a supposition too absurd for a sane mind, To say, therefore, that only divine thoughts exist is to deny creation and fall into Pantheism. While you hold such views you should eliminate the term ‘creation’ from your Christian Science vocabulary; it has no place there whatever. “In contrast with this is Christian philosophy, which teaches that from all eternity the archetypes, patterns or exemplars of all things that have real, substantial existence were in the Divine mind, as the plan of a yet unbuilt palace is in the mind of the architect, and that by the creative act of Divine Omnipotence copies or replicas of these eternal archetypes were brought from nothing into real being, separate and distinct from their Creator. Here it will be seen that the creative act is the mark of distinction between Christian teaching and Pantheism in all its forms, including Christian Science as one of its forms.” Proceeding to an examination of the Christian Science attitude toward evil and “mortal mind,” Dr. Lambert quotes this statement of Mr. McCrackan’s: “The use of the word ‘Mind’ in Christian Science deserves special notice. Spelled with a capital M it is synonymous with Spirit. Thus God is spoken of as Mind or Spirit. Spelled with a small letter, mind is used to designate that human mind which rises in rebellion against the Divine Mind—that mortal mind which attempts to counterfeit the Immortal Mind. This Mortal Mind is the ‘carnal mind,’ spoken of by Paul, and is the fruitful source of all sin and sickness. It is—not to put too fine a point upon it—the lying serpent, the devil, which tries to separate man from his Creator.” This method of distinguishing the Divine Mind from the human mind is credited by Dr. Lambert with originality, if with nothing else. But it leads, he thinks, to an identification. rather than a differentiation, of the two kinds of mind. For if the Divine Mind is all, how ean the existence of mortal mind be even imagined? To quote verbatim: “The logical conclusion is that the human mind, alias mortal mind, alias the lying spirit, alias the devil, is an expression or mode of the Divine Mind. It cannot be anything separate and distinct from the Divine Mind, since according to the writer above quoted, what ever is not that Mind or a mode (275~276)
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