Article March 15, 1930 Issue

In your report of a sermon by a churchman who had...

Ralph W. Still, Committee on Publication for the State of Texas,—Houston

Post-Dispatch

In your report of a sermon by a churchman who had recently recovered from a severe illness, it was stated that he "scored" the doctrine of the unreality of sickness and asserted that such an experience as his would disabuse anyone of such "modern so-called religious notions." As this attack was plainly directed towards Christian Science, this letter is respectfully submitted in answer.

Consistent with its premise that God is the creator of all that really is, or has true being, Christian Science teaches that whatever is unlike God, or Truth, is error. Only Truth, or whatever has its origin therein, can be real and indestructible. Therefore error, being destructible, is unreal, in a scientific analysis.

There is nothing modern in this teaching; though it is religious—essentially and necessarily so. For example, in the scientific account of creation, as set forth in the first chapter of Genesis, there is no mention of evil, all being "very good"—perfect. Habakkuk also discerned the verity that evil, or error, cannot be a factor of true being, saying of God, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." Christ Jesus, who demonstrated the unreality of every phase of evil belief, and who healed sin and disease on that basis, also left a definition of evil that disposes of the problem effectually. He said of evil that it "is a liar, and the father of it;" pointing out that error abides not in the truth, and has no truth in it. Patently, that which has no truth in it must be error; hence unreal.

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