Editorial March 3, 1934 Issue

True Religion—Its Basis

Duncan Sinclair

Religion has been defined as "any system of faith and worship"—truly a comprehensive definition. And invariably the faith and the worship relate to a being whom the worshipers regard as greater than themselves. But throughout human history this being, although regarded as greater and more powerful than the religionists, has too often been endowed with qualities which are the same as, or similar to, those they themselves possess. Their deities have been imperfect, knowing good and evil; sometimes sending good, sometimes evil, upon them. They have been capricious like themselves, changeable, unreliable. Thus, the hypothetical beings whom great numbers of the human race have worshiped have been but magnified, imperfect likenesses of themselves.

Assuming that there is a Being—God—greater far than mortals, there must be the truth about Him. There must be the unalterable, absolute truth about Him. And that truth should be the basis of true religion. Is it possible to know the absolute truth about God? Christian Science says it is; and not only so, but Christian Science declares this truth, thus laying the sure foundation for true faith and worship. Mrs. Eddy writes on pages 67 and 68 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "The epoch approaches when the understanding of the truth of being will be the basis of true religion."

What does Christian Science teach about real being—God and His creation? That God is Spirit and that His creation, which is the manifestation or idea of Himself, is spiritual. It teaches also that God is infinite, unchangeable Love; that He is infinite Mind; that He is perfect—altogether good. And from the truth that God, Spirit, is infinite good, it deduces the fact that matter and evil are unreal. It must have been such understanding as this which enabled the prophet Habakkuk to write of God: "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." Christ Jesus had this understanding also, for he declared evil to be a lie, even as John records in the forty-fourth verse of the eighth chapter of his Gospel.

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