Article May 19, 1917 Issue

A local preacher asks in effect how Christian Scientists...

Robert S. Ross

Catskill (N. Y.) Enterprise

A local preacher asks in effect how Christian Scientists arrive at the conclusion that God knows nothing about sin. In reply thereto permit me to state that Christian Scientists arrive at this conclusion through the study of the Scriptures. For example, in Genesis we read, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good;" in Deuteronomy, "He [God] is the Rock, his work is perfect ... a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he;" while Habakkuk says of God, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity;" and finally, although many more passages could be cited, in the first epistle of John we read, "God is love."

If one admits that God, the only cause and creator of the universe, including man, is good, he cannot reasonably avoid concluding that God's creation must also be good. On page 207 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause." In other words whatever is, must be good. If it is not good, God never created it; and if God did not create it, it has no basis in fact; hence the conclusion that sin, disease, and death—despite their seeming reality—are illusory and unreal. Christian Science declares that when human belief gives place to spiritual understanding, matter and all things material will be as unreal to enlightened thought as the experiences of night dreams are unreal to the so-called waking existence.

Christian Scientists are not content with mere theory, however. They know that a true proposition can be demonstrated, and that unless a proposition can be demonstrated it is not true. If God is good and God is infinite, God is conscious only of His own allness, in which case He does not know sin, disease, and death. To the rule of mathematics error is unknown. Apply this rule to an error in numbers and the error disappears. Likewise to God, good, the divine Principle of being, evil is unknown. Apply this understanding of Principle to human belief in sin and disease and these errors of belief disappear.

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