CHRISTIAN SCIENCE unfolds the all-presence of the eternal God, infinite good. Correlated with this is that other stupendous fact, that evil, good's opposite, is never present; that it has no origin or existence. Mankind's most serious problem is to understand that evil is unreal, and not what it appears to be. Men have been taught that God made evil. But God did not make evil, and cannot know it or of it. The Bible tells us that He is "of purer eyes than to behold evil," and cannot "look on iniquity." Infinite good cannot be conscious of or contain an element unlike itself, for a "house divided against itself shall not stand." Eternal Life cannot die; immutable Truth cannot change; neither can Mind err, Soul sin, or Spirit be diseased.
God, the divine Mind, is capable of knowing only that which is good in every particular, including man, His perfect and eternal expression. Evil is always the supposititious opposite of Truth; its every phase is a lie. It never has had and never will have reality. The only semblance evil has of presence or power is as a false belief or supposition. God is Truth only: He never believes or supposes; and He is perpetually aware of man as His perfect image and likeness. Evil is false in every particular.
Jesus recognized evil only as a falsity or lie. He never acknowledged that the supposititious opposite of infinite good had origin, existence, or reality. He knew that "evil is neither quality nor quantity: it is not intelligence, a person or a principle, a man or a woman, a place or a thing, and God never made it," as Mrs. Eddy writes in her Message to The Mother Church for 1901 (pp.12,13). To the Master, evil was a lie, which never had an abiding place in Truth. He never admitted an existence separate from God; and by understanding the all-inclusive goodness of God, he proved the nothingness, the unreality, of evil, including matter, sin, disease, and death.
