Editorial April 2, 1977 Issue

The End of Ignorance

Geoffrey J. Barratt

Ignorance is the objectified human belief that consciousness and intelligence are mortal and can be fluctuant or away somewhere else. This is so whether it appears as ignorance of God, Spirit, or as human gullibility, or mental darkness. But the spiritually scientific fact is that God, the only cause, is all consciousness and intelligence. Ignorance, then, is illegitimate and unreal.

This significant truth is demonstrable in human affairs. To realize spiritual facts is to play a part in ending ignorance, whatever its form. The importance of doing this is pointed out by Mary Baker Eddy: "It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and goodness. Understanding this, Paul said: 'Neither death, nor life, ... nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.'"^{ Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 304.}

Scientifically speaking, it is the height—or, better, the depth—of spiritual ignorance to believe that man and the universe are separated from God. But the end of ignorance can be confidently predicted because in the reality of being it has no beginning. Further, the termination of ignorance is present fact, not future prophecy. Reasoning confidently from this basis, we can begin negating any gullibility or inanity seeming active in our own thought. Such reasoning will help expose even unconscious naïveté, enabling us to be more alert—more impervious to extravagant claims of advertising, as well as more resistant to claims of disease.

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