Opposites are things in sharp contrast or in conflict. They contradict each other so that if one is true the other is untrue. And this is the situation with good and evil. Christ Jesus clearly taught that these opposites cannot be reconciled. He did not attribute evil to God, but he termed the devil, or evil, a liar. He said, "A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." ^{Luke 6::43;}

Here was a scientific statement that the Master constantly proved by destroying evil conditions, whether of mind, body, or nature, on the basis that God, good, does not create His opposite, evil. Yet since early Christian times men have persisted in trying to reconcile good and evil, Spirit and matter.

Jesus designated God as Spirit, and Christian Science recognizes Spirit as pure Mind in which there is no consciousness of matter. One doesn't have to think very deeply to realize the unity of matter and evil. All that is wrong and destructive stems from the belief that matter is substance. Envy, greed, fear, disease, drunkenness, crime—all come from this false belief. Deterioration, decrepitude, and death have the same origin. But matter is flimsy stuff. It has none of the enduring elements of Spirit, which are indestructible and which multiply with use.

The theological stand of Christian Science that God is not the creator of matter has met with scorn by many critics of Science or has been brushed aside as fantastic. Ordinarily, matter does not enter into theological discussions, but it should. It is interesting to note that in the first centuries of Christianity a controversy raged over the origin of matter, a controversy even more violent than that which developed over the statements of Mary Baker Eddy on the subject a century ago. After Jesus left the earth, certain Christian sects became involved with Gnosticism, which declared that matter is evil and that it is not the creation of God. An ardent effort was made by some of these sects to separate Spirit and matter, which were considered unnaturally united.

As years passed, the theory took possession of some adherents of Gnosticism that there are two gods, a God of good and a god of evil. This terrible fallacy caused the early Christians to expel the Gnostics from the Church. But the Church adopted the fatal dogma that God is the creator of both matter and Spirit. The effort of Christendom since then has been to reconcile what is irreconcilable, to unite what cannot be united. The error of believing God to be the creator of both the material and the spiritual was never again seriously resisted until Mrs. Eddy discovered the Science of Christ and exposed the fallacy of such a theory.

The serpent's first whisper to Eve in the Adam allegory of the origin and fall of mortal man was that if she would eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge of good and evil, her eyes would be opened and she would "be as gods, knowing good and evil." ^{Gen. 3:5;} Here is a description of the human mind, the mystifying dual state in which good and evil seem to exist side by side in each individual.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says: "From first to last the supposed coexistence of Mind and matter and the mingling of good and evil have resulted from the philosophy of the serpent. Jesus' demonstrations sift the chaff from the wheat, and unfold the unity and the reality of good, the unreality, the nothingness, of evil." ^{Science and Health, p. 269;}

Do not the difficulties some people encounter in attempting to demonstrate Christian Science often occur because they hold on to the materialistic and unreal things of human life instead of separating them from the real, and then rejecting them? People declare that Love is All, yet they indulge hateful thoughts. They declare they are spiritual, yet they do not abandon the animal. They admit that man is God's image, yet they believe in wicked mortals. They declare that substance is Spirit, yet they devote themselves to accumulating matter. They say that life's purpose is spiritual, yet they run about aimlessly with the emphasis of their living on social and materialistic diversions.

While students of Christian Science live normal human lives, work diligently, and play enthusiastically, they should never neglect to separate in their thinking the God-derived and real from the carnally-derived and unreal. Their progress in the ability to destroy the evils of sin and sickness, fear and poverty, will be in proportion to their devotion to purely spiritual objectives. They will not lose anything good by this devotion but will gain clearer views of life as God creates it.

Mrs. Eddy says, "Human hypotheses predicate matter of Spirit and evil of good; hence these opposites must either cooperate or quarrel throughout time and eternity,—or until this impossible partnership is dissolved." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 364.} Through the wisdom which Christian Science demonstrates, this partnership can be dissolved and limitations be removed from one's comprehension of man. Then a better human experience will appear, leading one on to absolute reality.

Helen Wood Bauman