Creation as generally understood means the making of something new, which after being created begins an existence of its own apart from the cause or the creator. The creation of the universe and man is usually thought of as having taken place a long time ago—just how is a mystery; on one point, however, all pretty much agree,—that with this mysterious, "once upon a time" occurrence an external condition began which is to remain essentially unchanged for another long time. The Christian Science view of creation is entirely different from this. It is stated by Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 502): "There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected." This view shows that creation is not an event of a distant past, the results of which are beyond control, though they may bring untold suffering; it is an individual, contemporaneous experience.
Creation is to us either the realization of the glorious spiritual fact or merely the flat tone of material nonentity—the one or the other to the extent that perception, aroused from the illusions of material sense, grasps the truths of the divine Mind. So fixed, however, is the habit of classifying experiences under the category of time, that even the trained student of Christian Science, when, for instance, reading about creation in the first chapter of Genesis, must constantly remind himself that it is the account of an ever present mental and spiritual experience. Otherwise, he will think of it as the story of a past event and not as the description of a recurring mental illumination; he will view it as a happening rather than as an unfolding or a revealing of the spiritual idea.
In "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 67) there is a profound metaphysical statement by our Leader, which because of this habit of time thinking is sometimes not readily comprehended. The statement is as follows: "Sin existed as a false claim before the human concept of sin was formed; hence one's concept of error is not the whole of error. The human thought does not constitute sin, but vice versa, sin constitutes the human or physical concept."
Mental habit tempts one to consider this extraordinary statement from the historical standpoint and apply it to personages who lived long ago. The result is confusing and perplexing. One is likely to forget that Mrs. Eddy was writing of the existence of sin as a false claim, not as a reality, and to deceive himself into believing her declaration to mean that sin existed before there were human beings to become the victims of sin. Mrs. Eddy's words state clearly that she is dealing, not with the existence of sin, which she consistently taught was nothingness and therefore nonexistent, but with the scientific fact that "sin existed as a false claim before the human concept of sin was formed."
The metaphysical situation described by Mrs. Eddy is not one which once was, but one which now and continually is in every phase of human experience. Wherever reality is—and reality is everywhere—there, too, an infinitude of lying suggestions exist as false claims, not one of them even appearing to be active, valid, or with a vestige of entity until "the human concept of sin" is formed— that is, until a false claim is accepted as true, and then made manifest in what is called human experience, where sooner or later the lie must be uncovered and destroyed.
The situation may be thus crudely illustrated: A bank teller sits in his inclosure with stacks of currency about him. This situation brings into existence a multitude of false claims—latent suggestions of the carnal mind—one of which may be thus stated: "Steal that money." A merchant, familiar with the bank and intent upon his own affairs, enters, transacts his business, and departs. This sin, which "existed as a false claim" before he came in, remained a false claim as far as he was concerned—so much so that he did not hear the lying suggestion to steal, and therefore was not even tempted to believe in its reality.
A second man enters—a stranger to banking procedure and with a stranger's natural curiosity about unfamiliar things. He looks about him with interest and with a mentality receptive to outside impressions. He notes the teller and the money, and he hears the suggestion, "Steal." But at once the foolishness of doing so is clear to him, and he laughs at the absurdity of the notion. This man has been tempted, but he has met the temptation. He has refused to accept the lying suggestion as real, and consequently this particular phase of sin or dishonesty continues to exist as nothingness so far as he is concerned.
A third man enters the bank. He, too, hears the suggestion to steal. He accepts it, and acts upon it. For him, from that moment, the sin no longer appears "as a false claim," but is accepted as a reality, for by hearing and acting upon the lying suggestion he has formed for himself "the human concept of sin." This concept must continue to uncover itself in his life until it is destroyed by Truth—until its native nothingness is perceived by a consciousness awakened either through suffering or by Science.
Is it not evident that the sin which exists as a false claim only, troubles no one? The man who is zealously and intelligently about his Father's business may not know that there is such a claim. He is too active being the man of God's creating even to hear the suggestion that he might be something else. The man whose thought is not altogether filled with Truth and Love, who therefore, hears the false argument of sin, can yet meet and destroy it without suffering to himself or others. The "human concept of sin" is not formed until the false claim is accepted as true. At that moment, too, the self-destruction of the error begins; for this human concept, being self-evidently without intelligence, can by its very so-called activity only more and more clearly demonstrate its inherent nonintelligence and unreality.
To protect himself from the aggressions of evil is a necessity for every Christian Scientist, and this is always a positive process, never a negative one. It means to think good and to live good continually. It means to gain and to maintain a consciousness so at one with the divine Mind, so responsive to divine Love, and so imbued with divine Truth that, should the shadow of the false belief that divine Mind, Love, and Truth have suppositional opposites fall upon it, the shadow would be instantly detected. When any lying suggestion is thus quickly perceived as a falsity instead of a reality, it is not a long nor an arduous task to dispel its illusions with the light of intelligence.
