The Scriptures reveal God to be Truth, one infinite, good Father, or Spirit, whose creation is good; and they expose the untrue, or deceptive, nature of all that is not good. In Genesis (3:1) we find the serpent, the Biblical figure for sin, described as "more subtil than any beast of the field;" and in Revelation (12:9) the same serpent is called "the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world." In the latter instance the angels of God are pictured as casting out the serpent, as being victorious over deception.
That the nature of evil is subtle and deceptive is not new to human reasoning as far as its cruder forms of personal sin are concerned; but the analysis which Christian Science makes of the entire material sense of existence as a state of self-deception, which moral and spiritual purity alone can destroy, is fresh and liberating. Once exposed, a lie can no longer deceive. Mary Baker Eddy says in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 403), "You command the situation if you understand that mortal existence is a state of self-deception and not the truth of being."
This statement leads logically to the questions: "Who or what is self-deceived? Is it man, the image of God, Mind's perfect idea?" Christian Science answers that man is never deceived, for he is Truth's witness and representative. He cannot believe a lie. It is error which deceives itself, and as evil becomes palpable to humanity it is through the material senses, or the mortal self, that the seeming process of deception takes place. This false self has only the support of its own willful determination to exist. It has neither Principle nor identity, and it disappears in the proportion that its self-deceptive, unreal nature is exposed by Christian Science and the Christly self, which destroys through goodness the belief that life and power are in matter, is demonstrated.
