Editorial December 15, 1923 Issue

Error Is Powerless

Duncan Sinclair

One of the things which strikes the student early in his study of Christian Science is the effort Mrs. Eddy makes to keep the fact of the allness of God before him. From first to last she declares this great truth in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" as if to circumvent any possibility of failure to convince every reader of the fact. And many a time such a statement as, "God is everywhere, and nothing apart form Him is present or has power" (p. 473), has so clarified the mentality of some of those suffering from disease or sin, while they were reading this book, as to bring about immediate healing.

But Mrs. Eddy did not stop with the declaration of the allness of God: she drew a far-reaching and momentous conclusion therefrom; namely, that evil or error is unreal; and if unreal, then powerless. That was a unique deduction; so much so that it constituted itself a discovery. Consider what the statement that evil is unreal and powerless signifies. It means that every evil thought, every inharmonious thought, every sick thought is unreal, and therefore powerless. It means that every inharmonious condition, every sinful condition, every diseased condition is unreal, and therefore powerless. In other words, to say that evil is unreal is the same as saying that every thought which is not harmonious, not in accordance with good, has no real existence; that all erroneous thinking is illusion, having no more reality than the fallacy that twice three is seven.

It is well to practice the analysis and classification of thought as to right and wrong, in order to attain to facility in the art, because on quick analysis of mental conditions depends speedy healing in Christian Science. On this point our Leader writes in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 252): "Christian Science classifies thought thus: Right thoughts are reality and power; wrong thoughts are unreality and powerless, possessing the nature of dreams. Good thoughts are potent; evil thoughts are impotent, and they should appear thus." Here she classifies thoughts under two divisions,—right or good thoughts, and wrong or evil thoughts. And the student of Christian Science knows which thoughts are right and good, and which are wrong or evil, by his understanding of divine Principle, God. Having so differentiated the thought presented to him, he is then in the position to destroy, metaphysically, the wrong thought by the corresponding right thought.

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