Belief versus Understanding

During a conversation with a member of a Christian church, I asked the question, "What do you understand is the relative proportion of the devil's power as against God's power?" and the reply was that they are equal and opposite, that is, the devil is fully as powerful for evil as God is for good. To the question, "So, then, you do not believe in a Supreme Being?" came the reply, "Why, of course I do." Attention was then called to the self-evident fact that if it be true that the devil's power equals that of God, God cannot be supreme, and the reply to this was, "I cannot help it; that is what I believe."

The foregoing has since recalled my first attendance at a Christian Science church and the subsequent visit at my home of an old acquaintance whom I was surprised to meet at that church; and I was even more surprised to learn that he had been a student of Christian Science for several years. During the two hours of that visit I asked all the questions which I had always considered "stickers," and every question was satisfactorily answered, not one being evaded in the least. I had at last found a man who could give me a sound reason for the hope that was in him.

Most of the statements made to me on this occasion were directly contrary to the teachings I had received in my own church, and were consequently quite amazing; nevertheless, they appealed to my sense of reason as nothing else ever had. I had always believed that God is infinite, and it was not difficult to grasp the idea that infinite good could not possibly possess an element of evil; that the infinite creator could not possibly possess an element of destruction; that infinite Love could not possibly possess an element of hatred or anything akin to it; that God is infinite good (not infinitely good), and that therefore all good is in God. These truths, with many others spoken of at that time, showed me that God's power, which Jesus said did the works, being unchanging and eternal, must be just as available now as it was two thousand years ago; that as the kingdom of heaven "is within," it is therefore not a place, but rather a condition of thought; that eternal life consists in knowing God, and that the knowledge of God "is life eternal," not shall be. Another very important point which was brought out was the fact that beliefs do not give us anything substantial to rest on, that what we require is an understanding by which we can put our beliefs to the test; for when they are tested and found to be correct, they become positive knowledge and are no longer beliefs.

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"As a little sanctuary"
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