From the Complete Compendium for the Study of Christian Science by Max Kappeler

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”1

With this statement, Einstein summed up plainly the demands of our time. The most recent effects of the ever-advancing discoveries of the material sciences show where science without the moral compass of religion is leading: development cannot be checked, research cannot be forbidden, and in increasingly rapid succession new discoveries are translated into practice. If the atomic physicists shrank from the possible effects of their research, it was because they knew that the wheel of development that would lead to the atomic bomb could not be reversed or stopped. Likewise, scientists in the realms of physics, chemistry and biology find that they, like the sorcerer’s apprentice, are unable to get rid of the spirits they have conjured up.

How do we prevent mankind from misusing the discoveries of the physical sciences? This demands the recognition and application of high moral and spiritual qualities. Small wonder that the physicists of the post-war era have begun to now talk of God and to search, almost in desperation, for a synthesis of science and religion. With such a synthesis, mankind will regain its God-given dominion over the earth, so that the divine ideal can hold in check the discoveries of physical science.

In the field of religion there is a clearly discernible renaissance going on. People are beginning to realize that religion without science is blind; that is, religion based on blind faith cannot provide satisfactory answers to questions about the purpose and aim of life. More than 100 years ago Mrs. Eddy wrote :

“If Christianity is not scientific, and Science is not of God, then there is no invariable law, and truth becomes an accident” (342:16–18).

This point is being made more and more today, both in speech and in print.

Mrs. Eddy has made many such statements that today—for the first time and with initial reluctance—are receiving support in scientific circles. The leaven of Truth is at work, and the general level of human consciousness has been raising over the last century until now it is capable of grasping the clear, scientific facts set forth in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy.2 Thus, “millions of unprejudiced minds—simple seekers for Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert” (570:14–15) have helped to bring the search for God, divine Being, and its creation into the focus of common interest.

Footnotes:

1 From a lecture by physicist Albert Einstein (1879–1955) titled Science and Religion. This lecture was published as part of Science, Philosophy and Religion: A Symposium at the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941.

2 All references to “the Textbook” or the “Christian Science textbook” refer to Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.