The author of the first chapter of Genesis knew the scope of God's perception to be limitless, and he put his thoughts into these words (Gen. 1:31): "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Christian Science reveals God as one all-seeing, all-comprehending Mind, but as self-contained and knowing nothing outside of Himself. The radiation of His own spiritual emanation is the extent of His focal distance, and that radiation is infinite; it includes all that exists through Mind's creative mandate—all substance, identity, activity, expression.
Grasping the significance of these facts through her discovery of Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy came to the scientific conclusion that the Father, who dwells in heaven—in the light of His own glory and harmony—can have no consciousness of evil, or mental darkness. All error, then, must be understood as outside the focal distance of Deity, hence nowhere. Mrs. Eddy says in "Unity of Good" (p. 20), "You will find yourself losing the knowledge and the operation of sin, proportionably as you realize the divine infinitude and believe that He can see nothing outside of His own focal distance." Here our Leader shows the practicability of a great truth. The understanding that God beholds nothing outside of His own infinitude places evil in the limbo of unreality. It makes sin impossible, inoperative, unsupported—because understood as external to God's seeing —without Principle, without law. Christian Science proves that genuine good always has the support of the Father; because true goodness springs from Mind, it lies within the scope of Mind's beholding. It is thus that divinity embraces humanity, preserving and blessing the spiritual elements it reflects and diminishing its expression of evil.
Christ Jesus was making a distinction between that which is embraced in Mind and that which is not when he said to the Jews who opposed him (John 8:47), "He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God."
