Article October 11, 1913 Issue

Consistency

AGNES MORLEY CLEAVELAND

In the beginning of the writer's experience in Christian Science, she exclaimed to the friend who was gently attempting to lead her thought to an acceptance of a logical conclusion about the nature of God and man, "But if I admit your arguments I will be led into accepting an ultimate absurdity." This ultimate absurdity, as she then conceived it to be, was the unreality of matter. It was only after the throes of a new birth had left her chastened and humble that she came to realize that the ultimate absurdity is belief in the reality of a material universe. This awakening came when she set herself the unfamiliar task of reasoning fearlessly and logically straight through to the end of the argument. Although the epigram, "Consistency, thou art a jewel," had been a favorite one, the realization was now forced home that the whole fabric of her mental existence had been constructed upon the fundamental inconsistency that like could produce unlike, or, that God could create something ungodlike. For the first time the fact was squarely faced that the phrase "inscrutable wisdom" of God had been employed as an excuse for illogical and inconsistent thinking; that one who was loudly espousing consistency was a victim of the fundamental inconsistency of failure to grasp the axiomatic truth that God is Spirit; God is All; therefore all is Spirit.

One definition of the word inconsistency given in the Standard dictionary is, "self-contradictoriness in statement." Obviously, divine Mind cannot be inconsistent or it would be self-contradicted and self-annihilated; hence God, or Mind, may properly be called the divine Principle of consistency, agreeing with or conscious of only spiritual facts. Therefore the suppositional opposite of divine Mind, mortal mind, or false belief, is the expression of inconsistency, disagreeing with or unaware of itself; that is, an absurdity or nonentity. The question then arises, How can nonentity—no entity, or nothing—cause trouble,—sin, disease, and death? It is at this point that we must fearlessly follow the argument through to its conclusion and declare that this is an impossibility. And since God, good, cannot cause it, there is no alternative but the admission of the truth that evil does not and can not exist. Its seeming existence is merely the self-assertion of inconsistency, and both the claim and its supposed effects are banished when we hold our thought rigidly to consistent and logical reasoning, and this in entire keeping with Jesus' statement, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

So long, however, as we harbor inconsistency in our consciousness, just so long will the brood of evils springing therefrom claim reality in our experience. Our work, therefore, is to turn from the contemplation, the weighing and appraising of material evidence or phenomena, to consistent and logical reasoning about God and His universe. On page 273 "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says, "Divine Science reverses the false testimony of the material senses, and thus tears away the foundations of error." It is not we who tear away the foundations, but divine Science, or right knowing, and we can only know rightly when we realize that as the image and likeness of divine intelligence we reflect this intelligence, which includes within itself no such thing as inconsistency, for Truth and its idea are always consistent with each other.

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