He was an earnest, truth-seeking man, and he had been told that while we are holding steadfastly to the truth of being we need to be alert and watchful, lest we be deceived by the claims of error, and especially in view of the fact that the dawning of spiritual apprehension uncovers the evil in human consciousness, and thus seemingly provokes its more vicious assertion and activity until it is destroyed by Truth.
To this he answered, "These two attitudes of your statement appear to me to be mutually contradictory. The second expresses a belief in evil, as I see it, and this is not possible surely while 'holding steadfastly to the truth of being.' Further, that the manifestation of good should stir up evil seems as impossible to me as it would be for light to beget darkness. The redemptive attitude of thought toward our fellow-beings, as I understand it, is this, to hold them as innocent as though they were immortals. Said the beloved disciple, 'If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.' If we absolutely trust a fellow-being, without raising the question of his mortality, we at once lift him in our thought to the plane of true being; but if we raise this question, we certainly preclude the possibility of thus apprehending him in truth, by reason of the fact that we cannot hold two opposing ideas in thought at the same time. Thus, as I see it, we cannot love immortal man while distrusting mortal man. 'Love taketh no account of evil.' Is not the divine Mind, in which 'we live, and move, and have our being,' able to protect us from all harm, without our resorting to the watchfulness—doubt and suspicion—of mortal mind?"
The issue was thus squarely presented, the contention made clear, namely, that the recognition of the claims of error is illegitimate for those who assert the nothingness of error. It may be conceded, that there is a seeming inconsistency, an apparent paradox or contradiction in every such recognition, but that it is only a seeming is revealed in Christian Science, and will, we think, appear to every thoughtful student of the life and teaching of Christ Jesus. It is a seeming that is related only to the dominion of the belief of good and evil in human consciousness.
