As someone with degrees in mathematics and computer science, I consider myself reasonably “sciency”. And before I offer any of my own commentary, I want to refer you to a Christian Science lecture given by Daniel Scott, CS available online, titled Evolution, revolution: Exploring science and religion/spirituality. Seriously, stop reading and start watching. It’s an incredible lecture.

…waiting for you to watch the lecture…

…seriously, go do it…

…I’m going to reference some things that Daniel said so they won’t make as much sense to you until you’ve listened to it…

Okay! Now that you’re back, it’s probably about an hour later from when you first arrived here, and I will share some of my own thoughts. Daniel includes a quote and conclusion from a natural scientist (not a Christian Scientist) named Thomas Kuhn (the man who originally coined the term “paradigm shift”) in that talk about how science was indeed evolving, but despite its evolution it was not getting any closer to any objective sense of absolute truth. “We may have to relinquish the notion, explicit or implicit, that changes of paradigm carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth.”

The New Yorker ran a piece just over a year ago about the “Decline Effect” titled The truth wears off that is equally fascinating, where they observed that: “all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly unprovable.”

As a Christian Scientist, this doesn’t surprise me in the least. In fact it seems quite natural and predictable. Any theory that starts with matter in the premise is faulty and is only as real as people are willing to believe it. But once that mesmerism wears off and the belief is gone or lessened, it’s left with no leg to stand on. You asked a lot of matter-based questions about trying to disprove Christian Science by scrutinizing it with the same sorts of matter theories. It’s difficult to explain precisely why much of that won’t work other than to say you’re going to have to test it yourself, and prove it yourself.

The trouble with the matter-based approach is that it often looks for one-size-fits-all, quick fix solutions to problems. And from what I understand of the nature of God, that is an inherently flawed approach. Natural science often looks to problems as something that we shouldn’t have to think about — we should just be able to pop a pill and make it all go away without really thinking about anything. And that is not how Christian Science works. Christian Science is about enhancing ones understanding of and relationship with God, and no amount of ignorance ever improved that. In other words, it’s very individual.

And in your own individual walk with God, you may have a lot of questions — and a lot of frustrations. I remember a lecture given by John Q. Adams, CSB where he was talking about his first introduction to Christian Science and how he would literally throw his copy of Science and Health across the room at the wall, yelling, “that’s ridiculous!” But yet, as he picked it back up and continued his study, he went onto became a practitioner, teacher, and lecturer, and has done some incredible healing work.

I can think of a Biblical example of someone who struggled a lot with wanting to be able to see the material evidence and proof that this stuff actually worked, and that is in the doubting disciple, Thomas. Even after Jesus reappeared to the other disciples, Thomas absolutely refused to believe that resurrection was possible unless he could personally inspect the holes in his hands. And it’s true that Jesus admonishes him a bit for his doubt, nevertheless Jesus still takes the time to show him anyway. And that says a lot. It says that whatever proof you absolutely need in order to gain a higher understanding and demonstrate things yourself will be given to you, because divine Love meets every human need. But God is not something to be put into a box and monitored with a thermometer. God is Love itself.

I’m praying for you, and cheering for you!

Thanks @soapergem for sharing that interesting New Yorker article. Since medicine and psychology are not my areas of expertise I could only evaluate the resultant implications of the findings by the concerned people mentioned than the findings themselves, which I guess has been the key message of the article. I think far from making one skeptical of the scientific method, it (1) demonstrates the idea that just because a theory is able to explain certain results doesn’t mean that the theory is correct, which is linked to how truth is defined in science (2) points to the lack of our knowledge and understandings of the processes whose findings have been reported in the article.
I was surprised to see why the author, rather than focusing on the these points, was trying to develop a theory on “slipperiness of empiricism”. I expected a lot of critical comments from the scientific community on that article and sure enough I found them here .
This comment is by Richard Dawkins :

This article has grandiloquent ideas and gets above itself. It is a grab bag of miscellaneous worries that any scientist who relies heavily on statistics should be aware of, especially in fields such as psychology where there are numerous complications. For this reason, it is worth reading, and I am glad, on balance, that we have posted it here. In particular, I think it is an idea worth considering that, at least in sensitive fields, we might initiate a new set of rules whereby scientists deposit, IN ADVANCE, their intention to run a particular experiment, with a particular number of trials etc, for public scrutiny BEFORE doing the experiment.

But what this article does NOT demonstrate is any kind of general, cosmic, Sheldrakian law of nature, such that the results of later repeats of an experiment are systematically, and mysteriously, different from earlier runs of the same experiment.

Last year I had engaged myself in a similar activity of developing a hypothesis for predicting the earthquake ground motions for New Zealand based purely on statistics. So I can understand how exciting the task can be and I appreciate the efforts that go into finally coming up with a consistent theoretical model but even then I will not recommend my developed model to be a basis for designing earthquake resistant structures since it lacks physical understanding of the earthquake phenomenon. Moreover, the field of statistics is based on a highly idealized framework which, as Dawkins mentioned, needs to applied with caution with regards to phenomena of real world.

I couldn’t watch the CS lecture on Evolution, revolution: Exploring science and religion/spirituality. When I open the link this message appears “timed out-trying to establish a connection with the server.”

Anyway, I have some comments regarding Gordon’s claim that my questions are matter-based, but I want to be sure whether its the general consensus of all CSists.
The reason why I don’t think my questions are matter based is related to how, historically, CS’ practice was conceived by Mrs Eddy who, as Gabriel points out, didn’t study material sciences or even if she had, possibly couldn’t have done developed a framework which is in line with today’s scientific methodology of ascertaining the truthfulness of her claims. Could it be possible that Mrs. Eddy’s idea of a personal God’s accessibility and It’s influence in shaping people’s lives ONLY individually is incomplete and that it could be possible to demonstrate it collectively in some instances of our lives like freedom from damages due to earthquakes/tsunamis ? Or that her ideas, like those expressed by every other human being, were constrained /influenced by the times/environment she lived/was brought up ?
I think it would actually turn out interesting if the results of CS treatment can be reported in a scientific manner which has the possibility of drawing attention of significantly more people from the scientific community as well.

I am not suggesting CS should change its name. I simply find the healing accounts of medical problems interesting but at the same time not scientifically documented and thus, demanding skepticism. Of course, there are theological issues with CS, like many other religions, which demand more severe skepticism but my chief concern is with the empirical results that some followers of CS claim to experience in their lives.

“Natural science often looks to problems as something that we shouldn’t have to think about — we should just be able to pop a pill and make it all go away without really thinking about anything. “

I don’t think that’s true. At the end of the process it may appear so, but lots of efforts go into first exploring how to solve the problem. I have never commented on Mrs. Eddy’s struggles in coming up with her own conclusions about Science of Being (which, although, I very much doubt) so I don’t think its fair to think of the natural sciences in that fashion. Imagine what would be our lives without the comforts which many of us enjoy brought about by the approach used by natural sciences. As an extension to that line of thought, imagine how much is actually at stake at the moment by relying on the scientific methodology and yet we don’t even bother to be skeptical about it when we board an airplane or drive a car or sit in the top storeys of high rise buildings. In case CSists do, then I can understand how my questions can be viewed as matter-based.

• This reply was modified 126 days ago by  Pacifist.

Gabriel wrote: “I would be curious to know when she first started using the term science in explaining the healing system that she was practicing.”

Hi Gabriel,

Mrs. Eddy was using the word “science” to describe her healing work and teaching from the earliest period. When she was a patient of Phineas Quimby, she’d even described his healing work as being “science,” although she came to see that Christian Science was very different than the “science” Quimby had practiced.

Mrs. Eddy’s earliest name for her own teachings was “Moral Science.” In fact, an early teaching manuscript she wrote was called, “Questions and Answers in Moral Science.” By the time Science and Health was published in 1875, she was calling her teachings, “Christian Science.” During those years she had gradually shifted from calling it Moral Science to calling it Christian Science.

Harumph. Nobody watched the lecture I recommended. @Pacifist – I appreciate your effort in trying to do so! Maybe try back later? If it sill doesn’t work you could always send the website administrators feedback. That lecture is really powerful and I feel like it’d be a disservice to this conversation to leave out Daniel’s ideas.

One thing I wanted to address — my assertion that your approach was “matter-based.” I still assert that; however I certainly meant no offense by it! I think we may be thinking about that term in a slightly dissonant way (meaning my understanding of what it implies might not be quite the same as what you understand it to mean). Jesus says, “The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.” When I refer to matter-based thinking, another way of phrasing that is any thinking or pattern of thought that has tacitly accepted any sense of limitation or finiteness in the premise. A more accurate term might be “limited thinking,” however that sounds quite condescending, doesn’t it? So “matter-based” thinking was my best compromise. If we think of the life as being confined in any way by a physical body, we’ve accepted that sense of limitation into our premise. But I recently pointed out something in another thread that I’d like to share here as well.

On page 9 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy defines “the test of all prayer” as lying in the answer to two very specific questions: (1) have we learned to love our neighbor better? and (2) are we less selfish because of it? What’s fascinating to me is that nowhere in this definition does she say anything at all about healing! If prayer results in healing, by this standard it is not necessarily “successful” unless we have learned something about loving everyone we encounter better, or have let go of some personal selfishness or selfish characteristic. That’s it! That’s all that qualifies a “successful” prayer, regardless of any physical change, or lack thereof.

That may seem like a very intellectually dissatisfying thing to say, but it forces us to really dig deeper and ask more Spirit-based questions like “what is Life?” I’m reminded of this quote from S&H:

What is man? Brain, heart, blood, bones, etc., the material structure? If the real man is in the material body, you take away a portion of the man when you amputate a limb; the surgeon destroys manhood, and worms annihilate it. But the loss of a limb or injury to a tissue is sometimes the quickener of manliness; and the unfortunate cripple may present more nobility than the statuesque athlete, -- teaching us by his very deprivations, that "a man's a man, for a' that."

There’s a motivational speaker from Australia named Nick Vujicic who really typifies this passage for me. He was born without any arms or legs. Yet he uses computer, writes books, plays golfs, goes fishing, swims, and gives inspirational talks all over the world. His condition, which you would think would naturally limit a person significantly, has served to do only the opposite of that — it has forced him to fight the discouragement, fight the depression, and he has reigned triumphant. He is not a Christian Scientist, but that’s not what this about. What this is about is gaining a deeper understanding of what Life really means, and sometimes it takes these extreme examples to really shock people out of the mesmerism that life is ever in matter. It’s easy to conclude that he’s had to fight with the physical condition. But that’s matter-based thinking. The real demons he’s had to fight — and that we all have to fight — are always mental.

While theories always try to link certain emotions such as discouragement and depression to chemicals in the brain, that’s never made much sense to me — someone who’s personally overcome depression through Christian Science. The truest experiences we have of joy, hope, encouragement, triumph over challenges, and so on are never because of matter. They are experiences that cannot be quantified or fit into a nice cookie cutter, yet they are experiences that can so inspire us and cause our hearts to “burn within us.”

But trying to apply a material yardstick to significant mental changes, mental experiences, and qualities is at least problematic. While Jesus did give evidence to Thomas the doubting disciple, he did not put that same evidence on parade in front of all of the Pharisees. It was never about trying to prove himself to anyone; it was simply about being meek enough to listen, yield up any personal sense of “control” in his life to his creator, and obediently live his life in accord and in unity with what God directed.

Skepticism and doubt, I guess, are important hallmarks of some particular branches of the physical sciences.

I think that there are a variety of interesting ideas that have been brought up in this discussion. I wanted to share some thought regarding the claim that skepticism is an integral part of physical sciences because I don’t think this claim is entirely accurate. I can understand why it is made, particularly within the context of conflict between religion and science. It is true that science does not place much importance on the role of faith, but that is because it seeks to understand the fundamental physical forces which seem to exist and are apparently applicable regardless of what ones faith may be.

For example one of my friends is a devout evangelical Christian and faith plays an important role in his life. He also claims to be fearful about flying on airplanes and whenever I fly somewhere he says he will pray for me because it seems like a miracle to him that the plane can fly. Now certainly there are risks associated with aeronautical engineering but there is no scientific skepticism about the various different physical phenomena associated with designing and operating an airplane. And from a human perspective there is no particular reason to be more fearful about an airplane flight than any other mode of transportation. My point is that someone who understands science would not be justified in being fearful about flying in an airplane. Science does not teach someone to be skeptical about how it is that an airplane can fly, but it also does not teach that the flight of the airplane is in any way dependent on the faith of people about the airplane’s ability to fly.

So what the scientific method asks for is not irrational skepticism, but rather the ability to objectively verify claims that are made about physical phenomena. Now in many instances there are questions that cannot currently be answered by physical science, and so these questions become philosophical rather than scientific because they have no definitive answer that can be verified with objective evidence. I think that the essay which Pacifist linked to puts it well when it says:

Leaving aside, for the moment, all questions that have to do with ethics or with values, there are a number of purely theoretical questions, of perennial and passionate interest, which science is unable to answer, at any rate at present. Do we survive death in any sense, and if so, do we survive for a time or for ever? Can mind dominate matter, or does matter completely dominate mind, or has each, perhaps, a certain limited independence? Has the universe a purpose? Or is it driven by blind necessity? Or is it a mere chaos and jumble, in which the natural laws that we think we find are only a phantasy generated by our own love of order? If there is a cosmic scheme, has life more importance in it than astronomy would lead us to suppose, or is our emphasis upon life mere parochialism and self-importance? I do not know the answer to these questions, and I do not believe that anybody else does, but I think human life would be impoverished if they were forgotten, or if definite answers were accepted without adequate evidence. To keep alive the interest in such questions, and to scrutinize suggested answers, is one of the functions of philosophy.

In my opinion religion has much more to do with philosophy than it has to do with science. Of course I know that Christian Science has incorporated the word Science in its name, but I think the word Science is used to express the philosophical view about the structure of reality and the belief that our lives are governed by immutable divine laws. Use of the word Science does not really imply that the theories of CS are generally testable.

In my view the most difficult part of any philosophical or religious system of thinking is when it begins to make claims about physical phenomena that are at odds with objective evidence. I think that this is common in regards to claims made about the historicity of the Bible (or other holy books for other religions). For CS there is also the challenge of reconciling claims made about medicine in S&H with advances in medical science that have occurred over the past 100 years. And there are also cases where some people have not felt that they were healed through CS treatment, which for them individually tends to cast some doubt on the reliability of CS as a means for healing.

Admittedly this discussion is somewhat esoteric and I also admit that much of the power of religion is the practical effect that people believe that it has in their lives. In my opinion religion tends to be a much more personal experience than that associated with the scientific method, and so that is part of why the two systems of thinking are necessarily compatible. I think that the biggest challenges tend to occur when the two systems of thinking come into conflict on specific details associated with an individual’s human experience. And at that point it generally seems to be an individual choice regarding what to believe. Which is why I don’t expect that claims made by CS, or any other religion, will ever be found to conform to the scientific method in a general way.

Thank you Mr. James for being a part of this discussion and giving your perspectives and honest accounts of your personal experiences.

I am actually of the view that our thinking does have some influence on our physical health but since I am not an expert in these fields I don’t know (1) exactly how that influence occurs and (2) to what extent that influence occurs. I remember feeling really good when I used to attend Sunday School, but after thinking about that for a long time now I have come to the conclusion how a match between my, perhaps subconscious, desires and beliefs led to that positive feeling. I am pretty sure now that I won’t feel the same way if I were to go back. And its my view that its very unfortunate that we humans, in spite of the technological progress and insightful studies on human behavior, have been following a socioeconomic system which, over the course of time, has resulted in today’s more or less apathetic (and in some cases violent) environment in the society which is responsible in a big way for me (and probably many others) feeling that way.

Anyway, I would myself be interested in hearing from some ‘experts’ who can suggest how to best decipher what exactly goes on when a healing takes places due to CS treatment, as people claim. And that’s my point in suggesting a scientific investigation into the reported cases so that the possible causes are at least narrowed down to a much smaller subset, even if not exactly determined, assuming it would be possible to do.

I just finished watching the lecture from Daniel Scott that Gordon linked to. I think it is an interesting video within the context of the question that Pacifist posed. One thing that he said that I thought was quite interesting was: “our worldview or paradigm effects our human experience” (possibly not a direct quote because I don’t have a transcript).

It is quite interesting to me how many intelligent and well educated people are adherents of so many different religious faiths which have differing views about the nature of existence. There are Atheists, Agnostics, Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Scientologists, and Christian Scientists, who are also accomplished scholars in a variety of different fields of human knowledge. It seems that it is true that the paradigm that we subscribe to does effect our interpretation of our human experience.

Daniel’s lecture does provide a cogent analysis about the uncertainties associated with modern science in its search for truth. However, from my perspective what’s difficult about religious teachings is that they are typically reluctant to apply the type of critical thinking to their own belief structures.

Christian Science does provide an interesting case study in regards to the process of mental healing. The fact that many people have experienced healing in cases where the medical profession through healing was improbable shows that clearly the medical profession is not infallible (for those who perhaps did not know this before). And indeed there are many things, such as the placebo effect, which illustrate the influence that the human mind has on the health of the body.

However, there are also things which seem unexplained by the both the philosophy of CS and the practice of CS in modern day life. Philosophically the origin of mortal mind is an unanswered question, and the advice I’ve generally seen given in regards to this question is not to focus on it as a vague philosophical question but rather focus on the practical effect of CS in people’s lives. However, when we look at the practical effect of CS it’s unclear why there seem to be cases where CS healing is not as forthcoming as the philosophy would suggest that it should be. The extent to which these questions raise concerns about the fundamental truth of CS will of course depend on the paradigm of thought of each individual.

As a general observation about human experience I will say that people are often drawn to new ideas. In the case of science there is a sense of excitement about learning new things, even if it overturns old theories. Because the scientific method does not rely on any sense of divine revelation, instead it postulates that there are fixed laws which govern the operation of the universe and that these laws can be discovered and understood through careful objective observation and analysis.

Religion also tends to be drawn to new ideas, although these are typically formulated in different ways. For instance if you look at the structure and theology of the evangelical churches which are growing in America today, it is very different from that of mainline Protestant churches which are in decline. I think that part of the challenge that CS faces as a theology, philosophy, and a church, is that it is not particularly receptive to new ideas. This does seem to be changing somewhat in recent years, but on the whole the church exists pretty much the way it was at the time of Mrs. Eddy’s death.

Which brings me back to the idea of paradigm and paradigm shifts. It seems likely that human society has undergone multiple paradigm shifts since Mrs. Eddy’s death. And so CS no longer has the advantage of being new, but instead can seem rather archaic at times. But again each person will has their own paradigm of thought and their own set of experiences to analyze and understand. I personally am interested in the history and theology of CS and how it relates to society at large, but I also understand Elizabeth’s perspective so I know this topic is probably only of interest to a small audience here.