Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 207), "We must learn that evil is the awful deception and unreality of existence." Many individuals, however, object to placing the stamp of unreality on evil. They contend that because human experience includes so much that is contrary to good, it would be the height of folly to believe that evil is unreal.

According to Christian Science, it is the acceptance of evil as real that makes it a part of human experience. This Science points out that the only way we can ever be free from the adverse influence of evil is to understand and prove it to be delusive, unreal, and not be deceived by its false claims.

Christian Scientists do not deny that evil seems to be very real and, at times, overpowering. But instead of allowing their experience to be the criterion for their acceptance of evil as real, they are learning the value of denying the supposed presence, power, and influence of evil on the basis of the allness of good. They reason that if evil is real, then God, good, is not infinite, All. To admit such a thing would be to disobey the First Commandment. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3).

The role of the Church is to help people overcome error with Truth, evil with good, but it can never fulfill its mission by assuming that error and evil are as real as Truth and good. Students of Christian Science are every day proving the value of denying the reality of evil, and this denial is helping to bring their experience into harmony with the divine order of being, in which there is no opposition to good.

The progress of mankind socially and economically is due in large measure to the influence of the Church in the lives of the people. For one thing, it has acted as custodian of certain ideals that have provided at least a glimpse of what existence can be like when the kingdom of heaven, the harmonious, divine order of being, is established in our lives.

A great hindrance to the establishment of this kingdom, in which there is no sin, disease, or death, is mankind's belief in the reality of everything they experience. Another hindrance is their woefully inadequate understanding of the nature of evil as deception. If we try to trace the origin of evil, we find that our sense of it derives wholly from our faulty sense of the allness of good, and it will disappear from our experience as we understand that good, being infinite, exists without an opposite.

The Church will fail to fulfill its mission as long as it leaves the people in the dark about the infinite nature of good and the consequent unreality and powerlessness of evil.

A Biblical term for the suppositional source of evil is "devil," In the twelfth chapter of Revelation the devil, or Satan, is referred to as "that old serpent ... which deceiveth the whole world." Whatever deliberately misleads us or whatever deludes us into misunderstanding or prevents us from knowing the truth is an enemy to be met and overcome.

Jesus referred to the devil as the deceiver that kept the people from understanding the truth he was presenting to them. "He was a murderer from the beginning," declared the Master, "and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44).

This same serpent, or Satan— referred to in Science as animal magnetism—would prevent mankind from responding to the teachings of divine Science in the present age. It would misrepresent Science and so make the message of Christ unintelligible and unacceptable to many, because this message does not confirm mankind's belief in the reality of both good and evil.

Satan, the liar, would even seem to interfere with the practice of Christian Science, deceptively suggesting that Christian Science does not heal. Many times when healings have seemed to be slow in coming, the handling of this suggestion has refuted the lie, and the healing has then taken place quickly.

Mrs. Eddy uncovered the way error seems to carry on its deceptiveness and then exposed the nothingness of its false claims. She states in "Miscellaneous Writings" (pp. 222, 223): "I shall not forget the cost of investigating, for this age, the methods and power of error. While the ways, means, and potency of Truth had flowed into my consciousness as easily as dawns the morning light and shadows flee, the metaphysical mystery of error—its hidden paths, purpose, and fruits—at first defied me. I was saying all the time, 'Come not thou into the secret'—but at length took up the research according to God's command."

To prove the value of this scientific approach to error when it appears in our experience, we must hold steadfastly to the fact that whatever appears to be evil—whether it be sickness, sin, injustice, frustration is unreal. Evil's claim to be real merely because it is apparent is deception. To accept it as real is to be deceived. But to stand before the deception and remain undeceived is to expose Satan's nature as an impostor and to prove its every claim to be unreal.

Ralph E. Wagers