Article April 24, 1909 Issue

EVIL IMPERSONAL

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

The belief of evil masquerades before humanity in the guise of personality. It presses its delusions upon mankind through mortals themselves, and they yield to its suggestions because they do not recognize the deception. Christian Science is humanity's greatest benefactor in removing the personal mask from evil and in demonstrating it to be what Jesus declared,—a lie without origin or power of self-propagation. When mankind refuse to listen to sin's seductive suggestions, because they have learned that only good is real, evil will have no personal agency nor basis for manifestation, and must consequently become self-extinguished. Toward this goal of individual purification Christian Scientists are working for the regeneration and redemption of the human race.

In her work entitled "Retrospection and Introspection," page 64, Mrs. Eddy says, "The sin is the sinner, and vice versa;" and in that and subsequent pages she makes clear the vital point of the oneness and allness of God. Sin and sinner are but the premise and conclusion of the belief in life and intelligence apart from God, and are therefore one error. To eliminate sin is to eliminate the sinner also; one cannot remain without the other. This truth is illustrated in the influence of Christian Science upon individual character, a marked moral renovation and improvement of conduct invariably following the change of thought effected by this teaching.

Mortals have been taught to regard sinners as God's erring children, but this teaching would make God also the author of sin, since sin precedes the sinner (Ibid., p. 67). It should be evident that God can produce neither sin nor sinner, inasmuch as good, in its very nature, destroys evil. Neither could God consistently condemn sin, if, as has been generally taught, He imparted to His offspring the power to become sinners, for this would be equivalent to denying the premise while accepting the conclusion. Sin and sinner are in the relation of cause and effect, and must stand or fall together. Evil is necessarily as unlike what God creates as it is unlike God Himself; hence the image and likeness of God never was and never could be a sinner.

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