ONE of the stock criticisms of Christian Science promulgated by those who have only a superficial acquaintance with its teachings, is that these teachings permit the followers of this faith to do evil; that is, these critics assume that the acceptance of the declaration that there is no evil, must carry with it the belief that all human or mortal experiences are good, therefore may be indulged with impunity and without sin. The utter fallacy of this criticism is apparent even to one who in his own experience has touched but the border of Christian Science teaching, for to those who believe that all which really is, is created by infinite Mind, and cannot be otherwise than perfect and good and eternal, like its creator, it is perfectly plain that the statement that there is no evil is truthfully made in the exact and scientific sense of evil as being in no sense a part of God's creation, and therefore without entity,—unreal.
Mrs. Eddy has made this unreality, this nothingness of evil, clear in our text-book, Science and Health, where, in her answer to the question, "Is there no sin?" she writes: "All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God" (p. 472). Again, she says: "He [a sinner] may say, as a subterfuge, that evil is unreal, but to know it, he must demonstrate his statement. To assume that there are no claims of evil and yet to indulge them, is a moral offense" (p. 447); also, "If evil is uncondemned, it is undenied and nurtured. Under such circumstances, to say that there is no evil, is an evil in itself" (p. 448).
It is because "unrealities seem real to human, erring belief," that it is necessary for Christian Scientists to "defend [themselves] daily against aggressive mental suggestion" (Manual, Art. VIII., Sect. 6), and that our Leader, ever alert to the insidious approach of the one evil, counsels us: "Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake" (Science and Health, p. 442).
