"Agree with thine adversary"

CHARLES V. WINN

Christian Science has brought to the world the demostrable fact that there is in reality only one divine Mind, and that this Mind is the sole cause, basis, origin, or source of all true existence. This Mind is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and being infinitely intelligent, comprehends and expresses all true thoughts or spiritual ideas. It cannot express or manifest anything contrary to its own perfect and wholly good nature. It cannot create evil; cannot cognize evil; cannot associate itself with evil in any way. The Christian Scientist soon learns that evils is not good in the making, is not undeveloped good, but on the contrary is utterly opposed and foreign to Truth, or the divine Mind. He quickly comes to understand that the so-called arguments of evil are not to be dallied with, but are to be instantly denied and utterly repudiated; that they must not be allowed the slightest foothold in consciousness, but must always be recognized as alien enemies, untrue to God and untrue to man.

Our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, states in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 580), "An adversary is one who opposes, denies, disputes, not one who constructs and sustains reality and Truth." Thus, error is not a positive reality, but only a lie; it has no basis in fact, and is without actual or real existence; it knows nothing about the truth, neither can it change it, affect it, or alter it in any way; it would have itself accepted as real and true, but it cannot long deceive those who have learned in Christian Science what true spiritual being is. The counterfeit cannot mislead those who know the genuine.

Then the question naturally arises, Why should one agree with the adversary? Inasmuch as the adversary—error—cannot know Truth, think Truth, or be congnizant of Truth, it must be self-evident that the arguments of error are only error talking about itself—that the false claims of evil are only evil's false, erroneous concepts or supposititious beliefs. Mrs. Eddy declares on page 294 of Science and Health, "This mortal belief, misnamed man, is error, saying: 'Matter has intelligence and sensation;'" and the alert student of Christian Science instantly sees that this is not man, but only error's false sense of man, without the slightest degree of substantiality.

Error has seeming power in our experience only when we identify ourselves with it; but when we know that it has nothing to do with God, man, or true existence, and agree quickly that it is only mortal mind's own untrue concept of reality and Truth, we separate ourselves from it, and our freedom is won. We should never talk about "my claim" or "my besetting sin" or "my sense of lack," but, instead, resolutely declare for the total nothingness of all that is evil, since it belongs neither to us nor to any other person. If we accept error's concept of us, we are standing in our own light; but if we steadfastly know what God is knowing about us, our peace and harmony are assured. When we persistently realize that good is all, and that all of good is right where we are, then the adversary's denial of these eternal facts appears in the true light of its own vain imagining. Because God is, good is, harmony is, health is. And because God is infinite, these are everywhere present, and any seeming belief in their absence is only error's ignorance. Let the "heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing;" let mortal error claim what it may, it is only putting forth its own erroneous concepts, and the alert Christian Scientist quickly agrees that it is talking only about itself, never about divine actuality.

Wherever God is, good is, because God manifests Himself only in that which is good. Then, when error presents itself, let us agree quickly that all its vain boastings are fraudulent and unreal, and turn thought at once to spiritual reality, which is always unchangeably good. Any temporizing with mortal mind's silly arguments means a greater struggle later on. A Sunday school teacher was once explaining to her pupils that the great red dragon spoken of in the Apocalypse was the same as the deceptive serpent referred to in Genesis. A small boy promptly spoke up, saying, "Why didn't they kill it while it was young?" Such wholesome advice might well be heeded by children of a larger growth in their conflicts with error. Promptness is an attribute of Truth, and we cannot give too earnest heed to our Leader's advice in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 356), "Envy, rivalry, hate need no temporary indulgence that they be destroyed through suffering; they should be stifled from lack of air and freedom." An unwelcomed caller soon ceases his visits; and the false claims of evil, or the adversary, soon fall into oblivion when we are too busy thinking about God even to listen to evil's false claim to presence or power.

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