Everything in the material world appears to have two sides, a good side and an evil one, a right side and a wrong one. This contradictory evidence has its origin in the myth of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as recorded in the second chapter of Genesis. The true or spiritual record of creation states that man is made in the image and likeness of God and that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). The belief that God first created everything good and then made a tree whose fruit contained the knowledge of both good and evil is entirely erroneous. There is no true record of the creation of evil. The belief, however, that God is the creator of evil has been accepted as true by mankind all through the centuries.
It is time for us to stop believing in the false record and to know and see only the good created by God. Actually we can do nothing else; for how can we see or know about something that was never created and therefore has no real existence? In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 71) Mary Baker Eddy writes: "Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense."
In the sixth chapter of II Kings we read that "when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots." The servant had gained this information not from rumor, but by seeing the enemy. Elisha's prayer that his servant's eyes should be opened, however, illustrates the fact that seeing evil is merely believing in that which is not true. "Lord. I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see," was Elisha's prayer for his servant. The servant of Elisha must have thought this a strange prayer indeed; for had he not just told his master what he had seen?
