Editorial February 15, 1930 Issue

Divine Pardon

Duncan Sinclair

How often has the cry gone up from sinful humanity, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me"! Miserable after material indulgence, despondent after a sinful bout, ashamed after giving way to a gust of willful passion, the repentant ones have turned to God entreating Him to take away their sins and to give them again that consciousness of purity which alone can bring them peace. And as they have prayed out of the depths of remorse, perhaps these words of Isaiah have come to them in admonition and in love, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."

Christian Science teaches that God is infinite Love, infinite good, and draws the inevitable conclusion that evil is unreal. This means that everything of a wicked nature, everything of a sinful nature, is illusory. In reality, then, all the passions of men, all the materiality which seems to have sway over them, all the shame, sorrow, and remorse of mortals, have no existence in real being. God, who is infinite Love, infinite good, has created nothing that is evil, nothing that can know evil, nothing that can sin, be sorrowful, despondent, remorseful, nothing that needs to repent. God's creation, including individual man, is perfect, reflecting good alone, and this to an unlimited extent.

But mortals believe in the reality of matter and evil. In consequence, mortals are victimized by materiality and are prone to indulge in sin. And indulgence in sin brings upon them the suffering and agony which in their ignorance they too often attribute to God. Thinkers are beginning to recognize that in telling the truth about the allness of God, good, Christian Science is laying bare the unreality of evil; and they are admitting that the sinner is not in need of being rescued from something real, but, rather, that he needs to be awakened to the fact that he is being deceived by error — illusion — and that his real selfhood, which is the image of his creator, is spiritual and perfect, and cannot possibly fall from that perfection.

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