Article August 15, 1931 Issue

In his excellent Bible lecture, as reported in your issue of...

Oscar Graham Peeke, Committee on Publication for the State of Missouri,—Mexico

Intelligencer

In his excellent Bible lecture, as reported in your issue of February 8, a clergyman in commenting on the reason for the existence of evil states that "Christian Science disposes of the problem by denying its existence. Evil is an error of mortal mind." This statement as it stands would be misleading to many people. May I therefore be permitted space for a short explanation of the unreality or nonexistence of evil as it is taught in Christian Science?

Christian Science bases its demonstrable logic on the Holy Scriptures. A fundamental teaching of Christian Science is that God is the only cause, the only creator; that everything He has created is good; and that nothing could exist outside of His all-good creation. This is in accord with the first chapter of Genesis, in which it is stated that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good," also with the statement of the Apostle John: "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." Logically, then, evil, which was not created, and indeed could not be sanctioned, by an all-good God, can have only a supposititious existence. To the material senses evil appears to be real, but these senses can testify only to their own beliefs; they can never bear witness to spiritual realities—to aught that is derived from the one omnipotent divine Mind, or God. Spiritual sense alone cognizes spiritual realities; hence the significance of Paul's admonition: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."

When it is thoroughly understood that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent divine Mind, and that man created in God's likeness reflects that Mind, then it is seen that evil has no mind and no reality, hence that it has no true existence. Pertinent to this is the following statement by Mary Baker Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 339): "The basis of all health, sinlessness, and immortality is the greatfact that God is the only Mind; and this Mind must be not merely believed, but it must be understood. To get rid of sin through Science, is to divest sin of any supposed mind or reality, and never to admit that sin can have intelligence or power, pain or pleasure." And on the same page she declares, "Only those, who repent of sin and forsake the unreal, can fully understand the unreality of evil."

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