0.0 – Christian Science Publication Contents

15	    What say you of evil? 

  	    God is not the so-called ego of evil; for evil, as a sup-
  	position, is the father of itself, — of the material world,
18	the flesh, and the devil. From this falsehood arise the
  	self-destroying elements of this world, its unkind forces,
  	its tempests, lightnings, earthquakes, poisons, rabid
21	beasts, fatal reptiles, and mortals. 
  	    Why are earth and mortals so elaborate in beauty, color,
  	and form, if God has no part in them? By the law of
24	opposites. The most beautiful blossom is often poisonous,
  	and the most beautiful mansion is sometimes the home of
  	vice. The senses, not God, Soul, form the condition of
27	beautiful evil, and the supposed modes of self-conscious
 
   
Unity of Good – Credo                                                                53


 1	matter, which make a beautiful lie. Now a lie takes its
  	pattern from Truth, by reversing Truth. So evil and all
 3	its forms are inverted good. God never made them; but
  	the lie must say He made them, or it would not be evil. 
  	Being a lie, it would be truthful to call itself a lie; and by
 6	calling the knowledge of evil good, and greatly to be de-
  	sired, it constitutes the lie an evil. 
  	    The reality and individuality of man are good and God-
 9	made, and they are here to be seen and demonstrated; it
  	is only the evil belief that renders them obscure. 
  	    Matter and evil are anti-Christian, the antipodes of
12	Science. To say that ...Mind is material, or that evil is
  	Mind, is a misapprehension of being, — a mistake which
  	will die of its own delusion; for being self-contradictory,
15	it is also self-destructive. The harmony of man's being is
  	not built on such false foundations, which are no more
  	logical, philosophical, or scientific than would be the as-
18	sertion that the rule of addition is the rule of subtraction,
  	and that sums done under both rules would have one
  	quotient. 
21	    Man's individuality is not a mortal mind or sinner; or
  	else he has lost his true individuality as a perfect child of
  	God. Man's Father is not a mortal mind and a sinner;
24	or else the immortal and unerring Mind, God, is not his
  	Father; but God is man's origin and loving Father,
  	hence that saying of Jesus, "Call no man your father
27	upon the earth:  for one is your Father, which is in
  	heaven." 
  
   
Unity of Good – Credo                                                                54


1	    The bright gold of Truth is dimmed by the doctrine of
  	mind in matter. 
 3	    To say there is a false claim, called sickness, is to admit
  	all there is of sickness; for it is nothing but a false claim. 
  	To be healed, one must lose sight of a false claim. If the
 6	claim be present to the thought, then disease becomes as
  	tangible as any reality. To regard sickness as a false
  	claim, is to abate the fear of it; but this does not destroy
 9	the so-called fact of the claim. In order to be whole, we
  	must be insensible to every claim of error. 
  	    As with sickness, so is it with sin. To admit that sin
12	has any claim whatever, just or unjust, is to admit a dan-
  	gerous fact. Hence the fact must be denied; for if sin's
  	claim be allowed in any degree, then sin destroys the
15	at-one-ment, or oneness with God, — a unity which sin
  	recognizes as its most potent and deadly enemy. 
  	    If God knows sin, even as a false claimant, then ac-
18	quaintance with that claimant becomes legitimate to
  	mortals, and this knowledge would not be forbidden; but
  	God forbade man to know evil at the very beginning,
21	when Satan held it up before man as something desirable
  	and a distinct addition to human wisdom, because the
  	knowledge of evil would make man a god, — a representa-
24	tion that God both knew and admitted the dignity of evil. 
  	    Which is right, — God, who condemned the knowledge
  	of sin and disowned its acquaintance, or the serpent, who
27	pushed that claim with the glittering audacity of diabolical
  	and sinuous logic?
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