Author: Steve Amato
Description: What the cults say

Christian Science

# Christian Science

see also http://www.carm.org/dcscience.htm

- God
- Jesus Christ
- Holy Spirit
- Sin
- Redemption and Salvation
- Retribution

## God

- God is All-in-all (Science and Health, 113:16).
- God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter (SH, 113:18).
- God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love (SH, 465:9).
- God is infinite, the only Life, substance, Spirit, or Soul. The only intelligence of the universe, including man (SH, 330:11).
- Life, Truth, and Love constitute teh triune Person called God - God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual idea of sonship; Divine Science or teh Holy Comforter (SH, 331:26-31).
- God is "the ever-present, I am, filling all space, including in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother God" (M.B. Eddy, Rudimentary Divine Science, pp. 3:26; 4:1).
- The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one everpresent I am (SH, 256:9-11).

## Jesus Christ

- Jesus is the human man and Christ is the divine idea (SH, 473:15-16).
- If there had never existed such a person as teh Galilean Prophet, it would make no difference to me (First Church of Christ Scientist & Misc., pp. 318-319).
- The virgin mother conceived this idea of God and gave to her idea the name of Jesus. Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious communion with God (SH, 29:17-18, 32; 30:1).
- Not that the human Jesus was or is eternal ... not one with the Father, ... but fleshly ... Christ is "the ideal Truth," "Divine Idea," "reflection of God."
  The dual personality (Christ Jesus) continued until the ascension, when Jesus disappeared, while Christ continues to exist in the eternal order of Divine Science taking away the sins of the world (SH, 333:32; 334:1).
- His disciples believed Jesus to be dead, while he was in teh sepulchre, whereas he was alive (SH, 44:28-29).
- To the apprehension (of his students) our Master rose from the grave on the third day of his ascending thought (SH, 509:4-7).
- Resurrection is spiritualization of thought (SH, 593:9).

## Holy Spirit

- Holy Ghost is Divine Science; teh development of eternal Life, Truth, and Love (SH, 588:78).
- In the words of St. John: "He shall give you another Comporter ..." This Comforter I understand to be Divine Science (SH, 55:27-29).
- The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, (that is) Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, "God is All in all" (SH, 503:8-14).

## Sin

- Here also is found the cardinal point in Christian Science, that matter and evil (including all inharmony, sin, disease, and death) are UNREAL (Misc, Writings, p. 27).
- Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death (SH, 475:28).
- The real man cannot depart from holiness (SH, 475:29).
- Sin, sickness, and death are to be classified as effects of error, Christ came to destroy the belief of sin (SH, 473:4-6).
- Evil is unreal (SH, 339:9-10)
- The only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise (SH, 472:27-29).
- The opposite of Truth, called error, sin, sickness, disease, death is the false testimony of false material sense, of mind in matter (SH, 108:24-26).

## Redemption

- Jesus aided in reconciling man to God by giving man a truer sense of Love and this redeems man from the law of matter, sin and death by the law of the Spirit (SH, 19:6-10).
- Jesus of Nazareth taught and demonstrated man's oneness with the Father (SH, 18:3-4).
- The efficacy of the crucifixion lay in the practical perfection and goodness it demonstrated for mankind (SH, 24:27-28).
- Atonement is the exemplification of man's unity with God (SH, 18:1-2).
- One sacrifice, however great, is insufficient to pay the debt of sin (SH, 23:3-4).
- The way to escape the misery of sin is to cease sinning. There is no other way (SH, 327:12-13).

## Salvation

- The material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin when it was shed upon the accursed tree than when flowing in his veins as he went daily about his Father's business (SH, 25:6-9).
- Salvation is Life, Truth, and Love understood and demonstrated as supreme over all; sin, sickness, and death destroyed (SH, 593:20-22).
- Sin, sickness, and death must be deemed as devoid of reality as they are of good, God (SH, 525:28,29).
- To get rid of sin through Science, is to divert sin of any supposed mind or reality, and never to admit that sin can have intelligence or power, pain or pleasure. You conquer error by denying its verity (SH, 339:28-31).
- Jesus taught the way of Life by demonstration. There is but one way to heaven; harmony and Christ in Divine Science shows us this way (SH, 242:9-10; 244:5).

## Retribution

- Hell is "Mortal belief, error, lust, remorse, hatred, revenge, sin, sickness, death ... that which worketh abomination or maketh a lie" (SH, 588:1-4).
- No final judgment awaits mortals, for the judgment day of wisdom comes hourly and continually (SH, 291:28-29).
- Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven (SH, 196:18-19).
- Death is an illusion, the lie of life in matter; the unreal and untrue (SH, 584:9-10).
- The body cannot die, because matter has no life to surrender (SH, 584:9-10).
- Universal salvation rests on progression and probation (SH, 291:12).
- If man should not progress after death, but should remain in error, he would be inevitably self-annihilated (MIsc. Writings, p. 2).

Compiled by Keith L. Brooks

Revised by Irvine Robertson

The Berean Christian Bible Study Resources

Edition: