박찬희 (기독교대한성결교회 주님의 교회 목사)
                    PROFESSOR : Dr. Karl Luff
                   

A. What is the Christian Science.

According to the Christian Scientists. They have a many differance with our own view of christianity.
That is view of God, Mankind, Jesus Christ, and sin, disease, and death, and salvation.
Christian Scientists affirm that they have not any religious creeds, But Explicitly they have a religious tenets.

The following is a brief exposition of the important points, or religious tenets, of Christian Science :
Tenets of The Mother Church by Mary Baker Eddy

1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.
2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine      Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness.
3. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.
4. We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.
5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.
6. And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.

                                                   (From Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, pages 496-7.)
 
 

B. To make a comparison between orthodox christianity and the Christian Science
: The Critiques.

1. What is the Christian Science view of God?

God, Spirit, is the Supreme Being, the creator and governor of the universe. God is ever-present,
all-knowing, all-powerful, and wholly good. God's nature is seen through synonymous names for God
used or implied in the Bible, including divine Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.

2. How does mankind relate to God?

Every individual is actually the spiritual child of one Father-Mother, God. The true spiritual identity of
everyone is the image and likeness of God, as the first chapter of Genesis makes clear (see verses 26 and
27). God's children are His reflection, or expression, and are always under His infinite care.

3. What does Jesus Christ mean to mankind?

Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, the Saviour, the Son of God (see John 9:35-37). The term Christ describes
Jesus' divine nature or spiritual sonship with God. As both the Son of God and the Son of man, he was the
mediator between God and man.

4. They accept the virgin birth of Jesus and his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension?

They said that Jesus was born of a virgin. Christian Scientists fully accept the Gospel accounts of his
birth, life, victory over death, and final ascension as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and the evidence
that he was the Son of God.

5. What is the Christian Science view of sin, disease, and death?

Sin, disease, and death do not originate in God, good. They are not ultimate realities of God's creation and
are to be overcome as Jesus taught and illustrated. Those evils result from the belief that man is separated
from God and that life and substance are in matter, therefore limited and temporal. Instead, life and
substance are seen as Spirit, God, therefore unlimited and eternal.
 
 

The nature of God (Trinity)
 

Christian Science	Orthodox Christianity
The theory of three persons in one God(that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) sugests polytheism, rather than the one ever-present I AM(P.256) The spiritual Christ was infalliable ; Jesus, as material manhood, was not Christ (p.84, Misc. Writings)	The Bible, not man's invention, presents God as One God, in Three Person-the Tri-unity or Trinity. (Matthew28:19)   Christian Science's denial of the reality of matter has driven it to deny that Jesus even came in a real body. John labled this an Antichrist heresy. (1 John 4:2-3)

 

The nature of Jesus Christ - Virgin Birth of Christ
 

Christian Science	Orthodox Christianity
God is the only auther of man. The Virgin-mother conceived this idea of God, and gave to her ideal the name of Jesus... The illumination of Mary's spiritual sense put to silence material law and its order of generation, and brought forth her child by the revelation of Truth, demonstrating God as the Father of man(p.29) Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious communion with God(pp.29-30)	Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary out of a God-originated miracle. He was not born, as Mrs. Eddy claims, out of some Mary-orginated though process. (Matthew 1:20)

The nature of the work of Jesus
 

Christian Science

Orthodox Christianity

He [Jesus] knew the motal errors which constitute the material body, and could destroy these errors; but at the time when Jesus felt our infirmities, he had not conquered all the beliefs of the flesh or his sense of material life, nor had he risen to his final demonstration of spiritual power.(p. 52) Sometimes Jesus called a disease by name ... These instances show the concessions which ignorance of spiritual Life-laws (p.398)

Christian Science prefers to accuse Jesus of error-or to accuse Him of deceiving us-rather than to admit the reality of llness. (Mark6:56)

The nature of the Holy Scripture
 

Christian Science	Orthodox Christianity
The decisions by vote of Church Councils as to what should and should not be considered Holy Writ; the manifest mistakes in the ancient versions; 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, with its own hue darkening to some extent the inspired pages(p.139)	All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself accepted the Old Testament as God's Word and He vouched for the New Testament which was to come-inspired by the Spirit of God. (Luke 24:25-27 ; 2 Timoth 3:16 ; John 14:26 ; John 16:12-13)

The nature of the Church
 

Christian Science

Orthodox Christianity

"The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle. The church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rouging the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritu al ideas and the demonstration of devine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick." (p.583) Christian Science claims to be the only true church, thus implying that all other groups which call themselves churches are false

The church is established by Jesus Christ. In all churches, therefore, proclaims the word of God and sharing the sacraments in the Holy Spirit. The church is body of christ and we serve the God in this churches. The church is not spiritual idea but reality of Jesus Christ and we meet the savior through the living word of God. If any denominations preaching the trinity, Jesus Christ as redeemer, and salvation by faith (etc.) that they are true church.

The nature of Mankind
 

Christian Science

Orthodox Christianity

"If the material body is man, he is a portion of matter, or dust. On the contrary, man is the image and likeness of spirit; and the belief that is soul in sense or Life in matter obtains in mortals, alias mortal mind, to which the apostle refers when he says that we must 'put off the old man'"(p.172) "The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit"(p.475) According to Christian Science teaching, man has not fallen into sin and man is not material in any sense; he has no bones, no blood, no material elements whatever. That man is the image and reflection of God, particularly in the fact that he is  spirit, not matter. Summarizing, the constitutional nature of man is that is only spirit or soul, and that he has no material body.

Our Christianity has a view of man made by God. And God made us in dust which is material. God, also, created man in his image and likeness. Therefore man has a possibility fallen into sin, because man is a limited being, absolutely. By the orthodox term, man has a material body. At the same time, the man has a soul and spirit. This all elements are given to all man in Love and grace of God.

The nature of atonement
 

Christian Science

Orthodox Christianity

Christian Scientists deny that man has ever fallen into sin. "If man was once perfect but but has now lost his perfection, then mortals hav never behold in man the reflex image of God" (p.259) Adam does not designate a historical person, but is a synonym for error, and stands for a belief of material mind(p.529). Eve stands for a finite belief concerning life and intelligence in matter"(p585)  The tree of life is explained as being 'significant of eternal reality or being"(p.538) The fall, therefore, for Christian Science, was not a historical event; the Biblical narrative of it is simply an allegory picturing what is unreal and untrue in contrast to what is real and true-namely, the sinlessness of  man. Mrs. Eddy said that man "has no separate mind from God"(p.475). This remark is same meaning that 'the Soul, or Mind, of the spiritual Man is God'. Therefore "Whatever is possible to God, is possible to man as God's reflection". (Miscellaneous Writing, p, 183)

We believe that all man is sinner. Christian Scientists deny the original sin but we affirm. If the man want to salvation, he/she must believe in God and Jesus as a Savior. It means kneel to divine. This behavior is faith of God as a creator. We think that man should have believe in Jesus.  Justification by faith is our only way for salvation. Jesus said that he is the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the father, but by Jesus.(John 14:6) Man should except that be born of water and of the spirit. (John 3:5)  And he that heareth Jesus's word, and believeth on him that sent Jesus, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into  condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.(John 5:24) (John 1:12 ; 6:47 ; 10:9 etc.) The orthodox view of atonement is salvation by faith as a whole-man (body, soul, spirit).

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