In your recent issue an article entitled "Which Way?"...

Reporter-Sentinel

In your recent issue an article entitled "Which Way?" implied that one way of meeting "painful and evil things" is "to endeavor to deceive ourselves about their really existing, sometimes doing this under the plausible pretext that God, being good, cannot bring anything of an evil nature into existence." Inasmuch as Christian Science, in perfect consonance with the Bible, denies that God made "painful and evil things" and affirms that He destroys such things, may I have space to discuss the above statement briefly?

The Bible tells us that God is Love, and that God is our Father. Then, logically, He is a loving Father. What loving human father would willfully be cruel to his child? Could the loving Father, God, possibly be guilty of cruelty that a loving parent would not inflict? God could not and does not send pain or any other kind of evil. "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Then where does pain or evil come from? someone may ask. In reply, a Christian Scientist might ask, Where does a mistake in mathematics come from? And he might add, Does the one who understands mathematics make an error through which a faulty bridge is designed? And does an incompetent designer properly claim that the resulting accident was an "act of God," for a good purpose? The public would know that someone was careless, or that the mistake had arisen from failure to understand or apply properly the truths of mathematics in designing the bridge. When a mathematician sees a mistake he corrects it, and then the error has only a fabulous or unreal existence to him; whereas treasuring the mistake and regarding it as a real and lasting entity, or accusing God of bringing it to pass, will not bring about its correction. Seeing the truth about God and the real man, as taught in the Bible, and faithfully applying that truth to everyday experiences, as is done in Christian Science, does not include deception. On the contrary, it embraces a sincere observance of the words of Christ Jesus, who said "to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

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