Article June 5, 1920 Issue

Arguments of Self-deception Unreal

HELEN W. BARNARD

When we accept Christian Science and its divine Principle, God, as our only standard for right living, we find, as in everything else, our concept of honesty quite different from any former idea of honesty we have ever entertained. Though it may always have been clear to us that honesty proceeds from Principle, and is alike available to all, yet it has never before been based on the fact that Principle actually is God or Truth. Mrs. Eddy, in the very first chapter of her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," unmasks, and warns the reader of the necessity of alertness to detect and avoid, the most subtle form of dishonesty—self-deception, when she writes, on page 8, "If we feel the aspiration, humility, gratitude, and love which our words express,—this God accepts; and it is wise not to try to deceive ourselves or others." Then she shows the wisdom of this by quoting from the Bible, "For 'there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed." Thus one learns that the demands of Truth require nothing short of absolute honesty, permitting no form of self-deception whatsoever.

Christian Science, being the searchlight of Truth, strips off every disguise or false argument of so-called mortal mind, which tries so cunningly to clothe this false belief of self-deception as our own thinking, so that we will, through ignorance and fear of exposure, lack the moral courage to attack and cast it from us as the lie which it is. In so far as we attempt to indulge this false thinking, we find the cleverest and most successful way to try to deceive ourselves is to do just what Adam did—blame some one else and hold that one responsible, so as to delay as long as possible our reckoning with Truth.

If there is a more subtle or vicious false argument of self-deception, it is that form which seeks to hide an ulterior motive behind a righteous cause; but here is just the time it has proved its own ignorace, as it has tricked itself into being discovered. For righteousness is governed by the only cause, which is God or Mind, that is never deceived and never hides a lie, but uncovers and proves its nothingness.

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Arguments of Self-deception Unreal

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