Editorial February 1, 1936 Issue

Uncovering Error

George Shaw Cook

There are many passages in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and in Mrs. Eddy's other writings which show the need for uncovering error in human consciousness in order that it may be cast out and destroyed. For example, in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 210), the author says, "Christian Science never healed a patient without proving with mathematical certainty that error, when found out, is two-thirds destroyed, and the remaining third kills itself." It is evident from the foregoing passage that in the healing work of Christian Science it is desirable that errors of the human mind be recognized as such, in order that they may be dealt with. Therefore, the claims of evil cannot be ignored. They must be uncovered and destroyed.

However, there is nothing in the teachings of Christian Science to indicate that error should be uncovered as reality, or that it should be made much of, or feared. The practice of promiscuously and persistently "uncovering error" in the mentality of so-called patients and others, while not seeing it as impersonal, unreal, and powerless, would have a harmful, rather than a helpful effect. It is regrettable, therefore, that some Christian Scientists have at times been unduly active and somewhat strenuous in their efforts to uncover error, especially when it has seemed to pertain to others, rather than to themselves.

A student of Christian Science, when discussing this tendency with a friend, once asked the pertinent question, "Why don't they uncover some truth occasionally, instead of always being so busy uncovering error?" This question is well worth considering by the thoughtful worker in Christian Science, for it is obvious that if enough of spiritual truth is uncovered—discovered, or revealed—to the sufferer from sin or sickness, error will not continue to occupy his thought as a reality, for it will not be able longer to deceive him.

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