Article December 1, 1973 Issue

"Error Control"

G. STANLEY HAMMOND

While making a business call in a department store, I came across a large sign, ERROR CONTROL. Under it was an arrow pointing to an office. This surprised me somewhat, as I had never before seen this term. Error control, I thought, is one way of describing what Christian Science does.

Mary Baker Eddy uses the term "error" quite often to indicate the material, discordant, and unreal. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures she writes, "Error is a supposition that pleasure and pain, that intelligence, substance, life, are existent in matter." Using Mind as a synonym for God, she goes on to say: "Error is neither Mind nor one of Mind's faculties. Error is the contradiction of Truth. Error is a belief without understanding. Error is unreal because untrue. It is that which seemeth to be and is not."^{Science and Health, p. 472;}

To control and eliminate error, or evil, in Christian Science is to put into practice the first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."^{Ex. 20:3;} Because Truth, God, is all-good, allpowerful, omnipresent, no error can exist in Truth or its perfect expression, man and the universe. With God-controlled consciousness we are free to operate in an effective, efficient way.