Christian Science does not ignore evil but destroys it on the basis of its unreality and the omnipotence of God, infinite good. Humanity has wrestled unintelligently with sin and disease because it has accepted them as realities. Mary Baker Eddy explains this important point in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she says (p. 481): "Human hypotheses first assume the reality of sickness, sin, and death, and then assume the necessity of these evils because of their admitted actuality. These human verdicts are the procurers of all discord."
The question, "Where did evil come from?" has many diverse facets. One phase of it may cause an individual burdened with the belief in disease to wonder, "Why am I sick?" That is the wrong question. As Christian Scientists, we are not interested in ascertaining why we are ill. We really wish to understand the reality of our being, our present perfection as God's spiritual ideas. Our desire is to demonstrate that God, good, is ever present and that this dream of mortal existence has no reality. Someone, evidently troubled because of evil's seeming reality, asked Mrs. Eddy, "If God made all that was made, and it was good, where did evil originate?" And she clearly answers in part (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 45): "It never originated or existed as an entity. It is but a false belief; even the belief that God is not what the Scriptures imply Him to be, All-in-all, but that there is an opposite intelligence or mind termed evil." And she adds on the next page: "The leading self-evident proposition of Christian Science is: good being real, evil, good's opposite, is unreal. This truism needs only to be tested scientifically to be found true, and adapted to destroy the appearance of evil to an extent beyond the power of any doctrine previously entertained."
Thus we see that in Christian Science the basis of our reasoning must always be the reality of good and the nothingness of evil. Indeed, the unreality of evil may be likened to a dream. A dream does not affect one. No matter how vicious a nightmare is, it ends nothing: but it is ended when the dreamer awakes. A loud alarm usually puts an end to any nightmare. Science reveals the Christ as here, breaking the belief, or dream, of error. The Christ comes to human consciousness and so awakens and enlightens it that it can no longer go on dreaming, believing in error.
