Mary Baker Eddy gives a very simple rule which may be applied to every phase of error with successful results. It is found on page 525 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science, and reads thus: "Sin, sickness, and death must be deemed as devoid of reality as they are of good, God." It may readily be admitted that they are not good because not of God, but not so readily is their unreality perceived. The rule requires that they be deemed "devoid of reality," that is, stripped bare of their pretentions and thereby rebuked and destroyed. As both Truth and error cannot be true, it must be clear which is real. When it is perceived that evil is neither immortal nor eternal, then will its untruth be evident and the opposite fact be recognized as the reality.
The student of Christian Science follows the aforesaid rule because he had learned that God is the source of all real being, intelligence, power, and law, and that He and His ideas alone are real. Therefore, he knows that evil is not God-known or God-sent. Nor does it thrive under His sanction. The Scientist knows that at all times and in every situation his own peace and harmony, as well as that of others, depends not only on his alertness in cognizing and claiming God's presence, but also on the alacrity with which he shuts out evil from his thought, and dispossesses it of its claim to power, presence, and reality. His understanding of the character of the ever-present Mind enables him to rebuke the impositions of evil that would usurp the government of good, and mesmerize mortals into lending themselves to its despotism.
Jesus once pointed out an obvious fact about "the devil," evil. He said: "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him... he is a liar, and the father of it." Early training in Old Testament history and law familiarized Jesus with the Jewish Scriptures. That he absorbed these writings is shown in the fact that at the age of twelve he was found in the temple among the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions about the Scriptures, questions to which there may have been offered no satisfactory answers. Upon these writings the man Jesus later threw a new light from a consciousness filled with understanding of the allness of God and the nothingness of evil, for out of these writings Jesus learned of his divine sonship. And he so clothed himself with this authority that he went about the Father's business, that of denying evil's right to existence and thereby overcoming it. The entire ministry of the Master would have failed had he not rebuked error on every occasion, either openly or quietly, thus proving his divine destiny and bringing to making redemption from evil.
