IT should be remembered that Christianity is divine, not human; its means and methods are not evolved from the mortal mind; hence it is not surprising that the real function of prayer which is designed to lift thought above the sense of evil should not be readily understood by the evil-thinking mind. As a matter of fact mortals are being delivered or protected every day from troubles of various kinds through what they know of the right rule of things, although from this right rule the wrong way is wholly separated. Indeed, it is the very absence of error in the correct standard that attracts and holds the confidence of those who use it. What mechanic would think of appealing to or relying upon the level or the square if these were adjustable to inequalities? Or what musical student would confidently seek and accept the laws of harmony if these laws brought out aught but concord?
From the point of view thus established one is enabled to see with perfect clearness that God could be of no possible help to mankind if what He is and what He knows were not absolute good. It is their knowledge of evil which makes mortals mortal, which causes them to sin and suffer, and if God shared this knowledge He would share its effects also; hence it would be quite useless to pray, if divine Mind rested upon the belief or knowledge of both good and evil, as does the so-called human mind, for, as Mrs. Eddy so clearly shows in "Unity of Good, " mortals can never hope to escape from evil if it is a part of the divine consciousness.
Before challenging the teaching of Christian Science on this question, one should consider the impossibility of accepting or understanding the allness of God from a finite material standpoint, since it is from this standpoint alone that evil is admitted or experienced, and that which takes in a sense of evil is necessarily incapable of comprehending the infinity of good. Mrs. Eddy's statement, "To Truth there is no error, —all is Truth, " is logically self-evident, but she does not teach that to the human consciousness there is no error, for "error, " she states again, "is the so-called intelligence of mortal mind" (Science and Health, pp. 475, 282). That which believes in evil is all that cognizes evil or that admits its asserted power, presence, or reality, and it is solely on account of its evil knowledge or knowledge of evil that the human mind needs to be transformed. No salvation is needed from what is good and true. If a sense of evil were not present to mortal consciousness, that consciousness would not be sinful and mortal, and there would be no necessity for prayer, no need of a redeemer, of the Bible, of Christianity, or of Christian Science.
