Article March 10, 1997 Issue

A QUESTIONS & ANSWERS EXCHANGE

This column is a place to explore questions with other readers and with the editorial staff of the Sentinel. The responses are offered not so much to close the question but to open possibilities for further prayer, exploration, and living of spiritual truth.

Q. "On the inside cover of the Nov. 14, 1994, ... issue of the 'Christian Science Sentinel', you wrote, 'Christian Science teaches that God is the only creator and that His creation is entirely good. Anything opposed to this divinely natural state is simply not real.' I'm curious as to how that last sentence can be supported biblically. If this is true, for example, why didn't Jesus say this during His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane? ... More than that, sin is opposed to God (and so is the devil), but nowhere in Scripture do we find anyone saying that they are not real. If you say that they aren't real, then why did Jesus die for our sins on the cross? ..."—from an inquirer in California

A. The profound, if brief, first chapter of Genesis with its announcement (verse 31) "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" is taken seriously in Christian Science. That theme is echoed by Christ Jesus in his command in the Sermon on the Mount "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). The perfection and goodness of God and His creation do not make the mission of our Saviour Christ Jesus any less important in confronting and destroying sin and evil.