WHAT is called worldly wisdom says that a knowledge of evil is essential to a proper knowledge of good; also, that good and evil coexist in primal forms, because nearly if not every identity in the material world in some degree manifests both good and evil. The serpent (or Satan) first announced the theory of dual nature in the garden of Eden, declaring that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brought forth fruit that made its partakers wise. It will be agreed that it is of the highest importance to humanity that a right perception of true knowledge be attained, if possible. This attainment is not only indispensable to the correct interpretation of the Bible, but is equally so to the solution of the problems of life. To solve the question a right comprehension of the nature of good and of the supposed nature of evil is primary; only from a right premise can correct conclusions be drawn.
Christ Jesus taught that God is fundamental causation, the ultimate premise or source of all that in fact exists. He taught that God is Spirit, and that God is the only good; hence, that Spirit is the only good. He taught that like produces like, for he said, "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit." The statement of the serpent and the teaching of Christ Jesus do not agree. Which should be followed? It is evident that there is nothing but the truth to know, for if we know the truth about anything we cannot even believe, much less know, any lie or false statement about it.
To illustrate: We may know that twice three is six, but can never know that twice three is seven. To know that twice three is six silences every misstatement about it. Again, Jesus said, "He [the devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him . . . for he is a liar, and the father of it." A lie is always a false statement about some fact, and by accepting a lie about anything, we lose the truth about it. A falsehood about a good man is that he is a bad man. A lie, to him that accepts it, reverses to him the nature and character of everything the lie touches; then, to know the truth about anything that a lie has touched and perverted is to correct this perverted false sense. If the statement 'of Jesus is true, that evil is a liar and a lie with no truth in it it must be a he or false statement about some fact or truth.
As the terms good and evil embrace all there is or can be known or believed, it irresistibly follows that evil is a He about God, good, for it could only lie about itself by calling itself good, and this lie would be equaled only by calling good evil. If evil should call itself evil, or a lie it would be telling the truth about itself, and this would contradict the statement of Jesus that it had no truth in it. It follows that to know both good and evil as facts, is to know both the truth and a lie about at the same time We have already seen that to accept a lie about anything as the truth renders it absolutely impossible to know the truth about it. The belief that the knowledge of evil is essential to a knowledge of Rood is, according to the statement of the serpent and the world's standard, true intelligence; hence that a knowledge of evil is a part of true intelligence. As the world greatly values what it calls "intelligence," so it must greatly value evil which it claims is an essential element of intelligence. Is it any wonder the world indulges and clings to evil which it regards of such indispensable merit?
Suppose the Christian who is so earnestly engaged in the destruction of evil should succeed in his effort? Then, according to the world's logic, he would seriously impair, if not wholly destroy, the world's intelligence. There is no other conclusion, for if every one were to cease practising evil any degree, then evil would cease to be known and would soon pass out of human memory. Again the best thinkers agree that experimental knowledge is the best and in fact the only true knowledge is the that he who knows most about good is he who most thoroughly practises it, both from within and with? No real knowledge of good can come to one except it be experimental It must become a vital and loving experience to him if he would know its real benign nature. He must pursue it for its own sake.
What is the result of the experimental knowledge of evil? When men practise evil and thereby imbibe its demoralizing nature, their perception of good becomes so blunted that they have little if any real conception of its nature and obligations. They believe that they find good in evil, and to their sense evil is good. No one would think of submitting to the hardened sinner a question involving the moral and spiritual advancement of the race. Thus we see that a knowledge of evil, if gained in the only way in which a knowledge of good may be gained, is fatal to a knowledge of good, for to the evil-minded good is absolutely destroyed. How completely the experiences of mankind, in this regard, prove the statement of our great Master, that evil is and was from the beginning, to mortal sense, a murderer of good. It is impossible to know both good and evil as reality, because good, in its very nature and in every element, quality, and law of its being, contradicts every supposed quality and law of evil; and vice versa.
If, then, good is a fact, evil, which is an emphatic and complete contradiction of it, cannot be a fact, but is a lie about the fact, as Jesus Christ affirmed. It is entirely beyond the range of one's ability to know that twice four is eight and also that twice four is nine, because one statement contradicts the other; hence we learn that things opposite in their very nature cannot both be true. We can never recognize a lie as such until we know the truth about that of which the falsehood is asserted, and therefore we can never comprehend the supposed statements and claims of the falsehood until we learn the truth. Does the one who practises evil and accepts its alluring promises understand the suppositional nature of evil? Not until he learns by sad experience that all of the promises of good that evil offers turn to ashes, and all its supposed experiences of pleasure end in misery and shame, does the sinner awaken to the delusions of evil; then, like the prodigal son, he turns from his dream of pleasure in evil and begins his journey back to his Father's house, the consciousness of God, good, that denies and forbids all evil.
The man who has learned the delusive elements of evil through the study, pursuit, and practice of good for its own sake, knows that the sinner is self-deceived by evil, and must sooner or later reap the fruit of his delusion that there is good in evil. The knowledge of both good and evil that the serpent once offered and still offers to mankind, bears only the fruit of evil. It drove Adam and Eve from the garden of peace and plenty and it is the foundation of all the evil in the world to-day. Since God, the one infinite good, knows the absolute truth about good He can neither know nor believe evil, which is the lie about it so man, created in His image and likeness, does not know and never did believe in evil. Mankind, which represents the false belief in both good and evil, is learning in Christian Science that this belief is not divine or reasonable human intelligence. Through this understanding, in a degree, of the nature of God, good, Christian Science is destroying the belief in evil as a fact of being, and thereby destroying the delusion of mortals that evil has anything in store for them but ultimate shame, misery, and disgrace.
Respecting Truth, is its nature good or evil? It certainly does not belong to both, for Truth cannot contradict itself or contain the elements of contradiction and warfare; hence Truth and good are one. Is it any wonder that the great apostle, Paul, should say that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, or that Jesus should declare this worldly intelligence so highly esteemed among men to be an abomination in the sight of God? Christ in Christian Science, has again come to human comprehension to break the yoke of material bondage to the belief in evil as a factor in real cause or effect, and thereby lead mortals out of their self-imposed slavery to sin, disease, and death through the pathway of increasing spiritual understanding, into the promised land of eternal life bince. according to the Scriptures and Christian Science body is Spirit and Spirit is infinite Mind, which must include and be infinite intelligence, matter or non-intelligence can have no real existence, but like darkness it is only an appearance or shadow of the reality behind it.
Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, declares that the flesh (matter) lusteth against the Spirit, and vice versa He explains what the fruit of the Spirit is, and also what the fruit of matter, or rather the belief in matter is This shows that Spirit and matter are opposite and contradictory in their very essence and nature. Here we see again that if Spirit or Mind be true, that which contradicts it cannot be true but is only a false human belief. Finity is a contradiction of infinity, the nature of one being contrary to the nature of the other. Matter, or nonintelligence, is unlike intelligence, and is a contradiction thereof; hence, if intelligence is true and real, that which contradicts it is untrue and unreal. God cannot possibly know or believe in that which contradicts and therefore denies and wars against the infinite and perfect nature of His own Being. Humanity believes in matter now, but it can never know it, and while it believes in matter it can never know Spirit, which is the very antipode of matter. This is why worldly learning calls God the Great Unknowable.
The greatest physical scientists of the day have recently stated that matter is nothing in and of itself, but is merely the phenomena of force, and this force they believe to be electricity; but they frankly admit that they do not know what electricity is. Thus this human learning even as it advances, confesses itself absolutely ignorant of both cause and effect and that it is groping in the night of mental darkness to account for itself. This is a desirable progressive state for the human mind to be in. It is beginning to see its need of light and is partially ready to turn away from its former basis of nonintelligent matter to infinite Mind as the primary and fundamental origin and governor of all real manifestation and law. Through the universal dissemination of the Science of Mind, the world's thinkers are rapidly approaching a state of consciousness which will accept the invulnerable position of Christian science that without an absolute, infinite basis or Principle there could be no existence; and even more than this, that every conclusion correctly drawn from this infinite Principle and every outward expression or outline of the same must eternally possess the unity— the oneness and perfection— of its basis or source. From this premise it must further and inevitably follow that every conclusion or expression derived from a finite source must contain, in appearance, contradictory and imperfect qualities; hence the manifestations of infinity cannot be discerned by or through a mortal finite sense.
The basic law of mathematics being recognized by mortals as limitless in its special field of operation, all its rules express the unity and perfection of this law, wherein the ' doctrine of duality has no recognition. Under this aw if matter or nonintelligence were infinite, there could be no Mind nor anything that is indissolubly united with Mind; and since Mind only, and its manifestation or reflection, can be infinite, matter is but one phase of that duality which expresses the belief of finity, and a mortal, material mentality is the higher stratum that rounds the dual expression of this finite belief about infinite Mind. Awakened thought beholds the sure promise that the near future will offer a more brilliant period of transformation and advancement of human thought than the known records of human history now contain.
Mrs. Eddy, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," has most clearly set forth the nature and fruit of false knowledge, more properly named by her as false belief; and she has also unfolded a demonstrable scientific and Christian basis and method for humanity to escape from the thraldom of its belief in and consequent experience of sin, disease, and death. The debt of gratitude which the world owes her is at this hour feebly apprehended, but the noon-day of a practical Christianity is approaching that will not only do ample justice to the Christian reformers of all ages, but will recognize the wonderful boon which Science and Health is and ever will be to mankind in providing for its regeneration and ultimate salvation.
