It has long been the worldly point of view that to be religious or good deprives one of some desirable experience or causes one to miss something in life. Material thinking, in arguing for a "broad" experience, has repeatedly presented the temptation of the serpent (Gen. 3:5), "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Christian Science has thoroughly uncovered this lie by showing the injurious and joy-depriving effects of knowing evil in any form, and the satisfying fulfillment of knowing the allness of God, good.

Part of negative thinking stems from the concept of religion as an objective or limiting law controlling the people by outside authority or ecclesiastical priesthood. But as Christian Science unfolds God to us as divine Principle, we understand the promise recorded in Jeremiah (31:31-33): "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: ... after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people."

Here we see that all real control is actually self-control under Principle. Man obeys as an idea obeying the Mind which conceives it. The law of God is indeed in man's "inward parts," for man is the reflection, the image and likeness, of God, Spirit. Christ Jesus voiced the highest standard of obedience to God in the Sermon on the Mount and declared the greatest of all commandments to be (Matt. 22: 37): "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."

Healing in Christian Science results not only in a better physical condition, but also in the regeneration of the moral and mental outlook upon life. Indeed, the healing of sin is always the foremost purpose of true metaphysics. This is accomplished not through an emotional attempt to be saved, as it were, but through an intelligent appraisal of the rewards and freedom of spiritual-mindedness and an understanding of the real nature of man as the child of God. Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 329), "If men understood their real spiritual source to be all blessedness, they would struggle for recourse to the spiritual and be at peace; but the deeper the error into which mortal mind is plunged, the more intense the opposition to spirituality, till error yields to Truth."

The sufferings caused by repeated errors move mortals to reach out for and seek a higher sense of harmony and peace. Thus driven to seek God's presence and His goodness, we find a measure of release from our ills. More than this negative approach, however, is necessary to receive the full rewards of sonship with God. We must gain an affection for good, a positive love, a desire to know and to do the will of God. This buoyant willingness, this responsiveness to good, is often found in the childlike thought.

A boy about five years old was taken with a fever, and the symptoms of trouble seemed all too apparent. The mother called a Christian Science practitioner, and they set to work to lift thought above the error. In the morning, freedom was evident, and they all rejoiced in the truth. As the mother and the child were finishing the Lesson-Sermon from the Christian Science Quarterly for that week, the little fellow looked up at his mother and said, with a spontaneous expression, "I love God, don't you?" The mother marveled at such a natural response to the goodness of God. With this sincere affection for good in the child's thought, it was evident why the healing had come so quickly and easily.

It is not always easy to move the rigid beliefs of self-love and self-will that sometimes obtain in the adult thought. But the power of divine Love is omnipotent, and the way of regeneration is open to all who receive the truth with rejoicing.

A sound basis for this affection for good is found in man's oneness, or unity, with his divine Principle. There is one nature, one source or cause, and man has no nature or mind other than Spirit, God. Oneness implies an irresistible attraction, an undisputed harmony of being. Companionship with good is based upon the allness of God and His consequent nearness and ever-presence. The fatherhood and motherhood of God sustain man's oneness with good. This conscious awareness and love for good is our protection and defense against the worldly temptations of mortal thinking, for it enables us to face evil and to destroy it on the basis of God's allness.

The understanding of the presence of God destroys sin. This understanding is gained through an earnest study of the textbooks of Christian Science—the Bible and Science and Health. A sense of the naturalness of prayer, a practical and workable expression of good, a deep intimacy with Truth—all indicate the modes of gaining an affection for good. In the Message to The Mother Church for 1901 Mrs. Eddy says (pp. 1, 2), "As Christian Scientists you seek to define God to your own consciousness by feeling and applying the nature and practical possibilities of divine Love: to gain the absolute and supreme certainty that Christianity is now what Christ Jesus taught and demonstrated—health, holiness, immortality."

Today mortal mind claims that to be innocent of evil—to know only the good—is limiting to experience and education. Also error claims that if God knows only good, His own nature, this fact would limit God. Is it not apparent that, on the contrary, only the oneness or singleness of thought can be unlimited and infinite? Evil is not additional knowledge; it is simply the negative of good. The consciousness of God as infinite or omnipresent good includes a knowledge of error's nothingness and powerlessness. If a belief of dualism, of the existence of both good and evil, is introduced, then immediately we run into limitation. The Bible gives the remedy (Matt. 6:22), "If ... thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

The natural effect of Christian Science is to bring out a happier condition, a more normal sense of joy in human experience. This understanding broadens one's capacity for achievement, widens his viewpoint in social contacts, and brings out the spiritual qualities which are attractive and successful. Mrs. Eddy states in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 330), "With each returning year, higher joys, holier aims, a purer peace and diviner energy, should freshen the fragrance of being."

There is no virtue in having to learn through hard experience what we can learn through instruction. Either suffering or Science teaches us that good is eternal, real, and self-sustained, while evil is inevitably temporal, unreal, and self-destroyed. It is wise to cultivate an affinity for good and an aversion to evil.

Gaining an affection for good can apply to the human experience in a variety of ways. A taste for good literature, good art, good music, is an effective help in staying clear of the errors that are broadcast in the cheap and tawdry imitations. Fidelity to marriage and home is a safeguard to all concerned. True enjoyment is wholesome and refreshing; it involves no lowering of moral standard or loss of self-respect. Evil is mesmeric and, despite its claims, has nothing to offer in the way of fulfillment. When we understand the nothingness of evil, we cease even to be curious about it. Then it ceases to have any hold upon us.

There is no problem or circumstance which cannot be submitted to the healing presence of divine Love and which cannot be bettered in every way through recourse to the one divine intelligence. There can be no more desirable aim than to dwell in the presence of God continuously and to be at one with our divine Principle. To all who willingly seek God's guidance there is full assurance that one can lose nothing real or desirable in doing so, but he will gain a rich reward in joy and fulfillment. The promise of the Psalmist remains intact (Ps. 84:11), "No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly."