Mary Baker Eddy made some significant truth claims about the Bible, Jesus, the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and matter. Yet these claims seem to be in contradistinction to what the Bible says, what Jesus said, and what the Holy Spirit said. Readers are encouraged to examine the opposing claims, investigate the veridicality of each claim, and come to their own conclusions about truth. Both claims could be false but both claims can not be true. Christian Science teaches about the power of the mind. Please use that power of mind (as I did, having been raised in Christian Science before embracing biblical Christianity) to assess the following comparison. The following comparisons between Christian Science and the teaching of the Bible are derived from the Watchman Fellowship. (http://www.watchman.org/profile/ChrSciProfile.htm)

The Bible according to Mrs. Eddy: Even though Mrs. Eddy claimed that “the Bible has been my only authority,” in actual practice Christian Scientists accept the Bible only as interpreted by Mary Baker Eddy in her writings. In fact, she taught that the Bible has been corrupted, but Science and Health is the “first book” which has been “uncontaminated by human hypotheses.”

The Bible responds: (2 Timothy 3:16) ‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” It also states (Joshua 1:8) “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” The Bible has been under much greater attack, and for much longer periods of time, than Science and Health yet, like an anvil, has withstood every test. The Dead Sea Scrolls are but one example attesting to its authenticity and its preservation without corruption through time.

God the Holy Spirit according to Mrs. Eddy: Christian Science denies that the Holy Spirit is a personal being. It teaches that the Holy Spirit is Christian Science, “This Comforter I understand to be Divine Science.” It is the unfolding of the thoughts and infinite mind of God.

God the Holy Spirit responds: The Holy Spirit is a personal Being, not “Divine Science” (John 16:13–14).

The Trinity according to Mrs. Eddy: Mrs. Eddy frequently oscillated in her writings between a personal and impersonal view of God. Even though Mrs. Eddy denied it, Christian Science teaches at least implicitly, if not explicitly, a pantheistic view of the nature of God: “God is All-in-all. God is good. Good is Mind. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter.” Christian Science clearly repudiates the Trinitarian Godhead: “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.” “Life, Truth, and Love constitutes the triune Person called God….God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual idea of sonship; divine Science or the Holy Comforter.”

The Trinity responds: God is a triune, personal, transcendent Being who created “the world and all things in it” (Acts 17:24). He is not a pantheistic all-in-all. He is holy and just, as well as love. God created and governs the universe, including man (Acts 17:24–27).

Jesus according to Mrs. Eddy: Christian Science denies that Jesus Christ is God incarnate. It denies that Jesus is one Person with two natures — fully God and fully man. Christian Science presents Jesus Christ in terms of a Gnostic duality: “The spiritual Christ was infallible; Jesus as material manhood was not Christ.” “Christ as the true spiritual idea, is the ideal of God now and forever…” “The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual…” while, “The corporeal [physical] man Jesus was human” only. Yet “matter is mortal error… matter is the unreal and temporal.” So what Christian Science actually concludes is that the physical humanity of Jesus was an illusion, “as it seemed to mortal view.” Also, Christian Science attempts to explain away the historical death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christian Science denies the penal, substitutionary atonement of Christ saying, “The material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin when it was shed on ‘the accursed tree,’ than when it was flowing in his veins as he went daily about his Father’s business.”

Jesus responds: Jesus Christ is not the divine idea of God but was God uniquely manifested in the flesh, truly God and truly man, one divine Person with two indivisible natures, who is the only Savior and the only truth and Lord (John 1:1–3,14, 14:6; Col. 2:9; Phil. 2:6–7).

Maya according to Mrs. Eddy: Sickness and disease are illusory, the product of a false belief, and not an actual result of sin. “The cause of all so-called disease is mental, a mortal fear, a mistaken belief…” No true Christian Science member should ever go to a doctor, hospital, or take any kind of medicine, for to do so is to deny “Divine Science.” Indeed in the church’s official “The Christian Science Standard of Healing,” Mary Eddy Baker is quoted as saying, “It is impossible to gain control over the body in any other way [divine Mind-Prayer]. On this fundamental point, timid conservatism is absolutely inadmissible. Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized.”

Maya according to the Bible: Matter is not an illusion but is actual, and was created distinct from God. He pronounced it “good” (Gen. 1:31). Sin, sickness, and evil are not an illusion, but a result of man’s willful choice to rebel against a Holy God, and death (both physical, and eternal separation from God) is the result of sin (Rom. 3:10, 23; 5:12–14; 1 John 1:8–10).

Whereas the Christian Science approach to healing may help psychosomatic illnesses, it has been scientifically demonstrated that it is not effective with real illness. Studies comparing the cumulative death rates of practicing Christian Scientists with control groups have shown significantly higher death rates among the Christian Scientists.

Conclusion: The statistics on death are conclusive. Every single person dies. Every Christian Scientist dies from their last disease or malady. Christian Science has been in substantial decline for the past 40 years in both the membership and the number of churches. It is now mostly concentrated in California and New York. The most famous Christian Scientists have now passed in the past few decades. There are very few new Christian Science leaders in the current generation. Both scientific advance and the eternal truths taught in the Bible have presented significant obstacles for Christian Science to overcome. It is by biblical truth, told in love, that assures eternal hope for the Christian Scientist who will accept that the real Jesus is very different than the one taught by Mrs. Eddy. It is the Jesus of the Bible who has the power to heal and save. The Christian Scientist can neither cure disease nor provide for eternal salvation. Check out the real Jesus here: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/04/10/the-real-jesus.
He will change your future.