Article October 7, 1933 Issue

Replying to a correspondent, let me say that a lie is...

Charles W. J. Tennant,—London

North Middlesex Chronicle

Replying to a correspondent, let me say that a lie is always enmity against the truth, but it is seen to have no reality or entity when the truth is discerned. The fact that two and two makes four exists everywhere. The belief that two and two makes five in reality does not exist anywhere except in the false consciousness of an individual who may believe it. That two and two makes five is, therefore, a lie about the fact that two and two makes four, and is enmity against the truth; but it does not in reality exist. Surely this illustration should show your correspondent what Christian Science means by the unreality of mortal mind. It corresponds to the belief that two and two makes five.

Again, the premise of Christian Science is that God, Spirit, is infinite, and the conclusion to be drawn from this is that man in the image and likeness of God must be spiritual.

In reply to another correspondent in your same issue, let me say that error has no creator. It is the suppositional absence of God who is infinite and ever present. Mrs. Eddy says on page 67 of her book "Retrospection and Introspection": "The sinner created neither himself nor sin, but sin created the sinner; that is, error made its man mortal, and this mortal was the image and likeness of evil, not of good. Therefore the lie was, and is, collective as well as individual. It was in no way contingent on Adam's thought, but supposititiously self-created. In the words of our Master, it, the 'devil' (alias evil), 'was a liar, and the father of it.' "