The account of creation as given in the first chapter of Genesis and the first few verses of the second chapter, ending with "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good," and, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them," is accepted by the student of Christian Science as the complete record of all that really has existence. Instead of accepting the suggestion of the so-called human mind when he wishes to test the validity of any concept, he endeavors to find whether it is included in this "very good" and only creation. Confronted, for instance, with various appearances of division which are quite generally accepted as fundamental and inevitable, he turns for verification to the first chapter of Genesis, and finds there record of just one division. "God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.... And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so." Throughout the Bible light and darkness are used symbolically to represent good and evil. It is therefore apparent that this one division mentioned in the true account of creation is the division between good and evil, between existence and negation. And since no other divisions are included, any others which may appear to exist must be merely the supposititious results of false beliefs about the one true division.
One of these false beliefs is that this division which is made in the allegory of Genesis can be unmade, that good and evil, truth and falsehood, do mingle and merge in man nature, and experience. Another is that God can be severed from His idea, man, that groups called sexes, races, and classes represent the real creation, the antagonisms of which have seemingly produced unutterable strife and misery, until the very word "division" has come to have an almost entirely sinister meaning. The only way, of course, to escape the effects of either of these lies is to understand the truth itself. The only way to understand why the firmament which divides light from darkness can never be removed or obliterated is to realize the nature of that firmament. So long as good and evil are held to be equally real, there can be no firmament between them. One is supposed to be the attenuation or the completion or another aspect of the other, and no real separation appears possible. But when it is demonstrably understood in Christian Science, as taught by Mrs. Eddy, that the opposite of good, or reality, is evil, or unreality, one begins to see that no greater and more eternal division can be conceived of than that which exists between what is true and what is not. For instance, loosely considered, the supposition that three times three equals eight and ninety-nine one hundredths might seem to be nearer to the truth that it is nine than the supposition that three times three equals nine hundred. Yet in reality any supposition—whatever its degree—is divided from the truth by a firmament it can never bridge. The only right answer is not a supposition. It is a fact. Any supposition is not a fact. Here is the great and only division, the only antagonism. God, including His good and complete idea, man, is the fact of being, forever divided by the firmament from any false supposition, be it grotesque caricature or plausible imitation of the truth. To know this is very reassuring, and the knowing of it gives to the word "division" a strong and comforting meaning.
In the same way the truth understood is the only antidote to the second false claim that there are divisions many. The human mind having supposed the divisions which it calls races, sexes, and classes, must needs also suppose some mock firmaments to maintain these divisions,—rigid differences in characteristics and marked inequalities. It is interesting to note that it is quite impossible to conceive of perfect equality between any two human groups or individuals. Superiority and inferiority are concepts which are inseparable from the belief that there is more than one Mind, the great I am. Perfect equality cannot, in fact, be conceived of apart from God. He is equal to Himself, infinity, and there can be no other complete equality.
