AN inexperienced advocate sometimes makes the mistake of assuming a burden of proof which by the rules of logic and procedure should rest upon his opponent. Sometimes a new student of Christian Science makes a similar mistake. Perhaps it is a grateful enthusiasm which carries the new disciple into argument concerning things which are so self-evident that there is nothing to argue.
Christian people generally profess belief in the omnipotence, omnipresence, and infinite goodness of God. Why should any one assume the burden of proving the evident fact which follows by resistless logic, that everything really belonging to God's creation reflects His goodness? If any one maintains the universal creator-ship of infinite good and yet insists upon the presence of sin and disease among the realities of His creation, let him explain the anomaly. When he has succeeded, it will be soon enough for the Scientist to assume the burden of proving what seems until then self-evident, viz., that the divine perfection and infinite power excludes from any place in real existence all that contradicts God's nature or denies His power.
The author of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" states the true position on page 130 in these words: "If thought is startled at the strong claim of Science for the supremacy of God, or Truth, and doubts the supremacy of good, ought we not, contrariwise, to be astounded at the vigorous claims of evil and doubt them, and no longer think it natural to love sin and unnatural to forsake it,—no longer imagine evil to be ever-present and good absent? Truth should not seem so surprising and unnatural as error, and error should not seem so real as truth."
