Have you ever heard the expression, “For one look at error take ten looks at Truth”? It comes from a statement that William P. McKenzie attributed to Mary Baker Eddy, “For one look at error take ten at the ideal Christ” (“The uplifted ideal,” September 1904, Journal). I take this as a caution, when praying, to be careful not to become focused on the very belief of evil I am attempting to destroy.
It is true that the negation of any power of error to exist, or to have influence over us, is a vital component of scientific metaphysical work. Indeed, in the Christian Science textbook Mrs. Eddy writes, “Denial of the claims of matter is a great step towards the joys of Spirit, towards human freedom and the final triumph over the body” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 242). This negation is based squarely on the understanding of what is always spiritually true. But if we focus our attention too much on error of any kind, even while denying its existence, we may be inadvertently building it up. In Shakespearean language, “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”
In reality, we are the expressions of the divine Mind—spiritual, eternal, and satisfied. We include in our true identity as God’s spiritual idea, man, only that which is right, productive, unselfed, healthy, loving, and pure—only that which is good. We do not include anything apart from that which evidences the nature and allness of God. Thus, it is important to ensure that our understanding and admission of these truths—the allness of God, good, and man’s unalterable perfection—outshines and overcomes any imposing suggestions to the contrary.
Effective Christian Science treatment requires that we see all discord as a lie and that we mentally, and at times verbally, invalidate that lie with Truth—with the opposite spiritual facts concerning God and man. Our prayerful work should always be wholly on the side of what is good and real. This calms thought and opens it to an expectation of healing. “Evil is destroyed by the sense of good,” states Science and Health (p. 311).
By teaching the utter nothingness of evil, Christian Science does not ignore the fact that evil claims to be real and powerful. On page 55 of Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, another important work by Mrs. Eddy, we read: “Opposite to good, is the universal claim of evil that seeks the proportions of good.”
Denying the claim of error, then, is an absolute necessity. But it is especially essential not to deny error without affirming the truth. Through spiritual understanding we can refuse to allow the sense of evil or matter to seem equal to, or to surpass our spiritual sense of, the reality of good bestowed by our loving Father-Mother God.
To thoroughly defend oneself and eradicate the seeming effects of a lie, is to refuse any mental consent to the allegations of that lie with a deep understanding that is just the opposite of whatever error is pleading. For example, when dealing with physical challenges, I have found that if I have succumbed to a lie about myself—that which is not in accord with what I know God created me as—this error must be corrected with precise spiritual reasoning and undeviating conviction. I need to place my mental conviction on only what God has created. I need to replace an insistent mortal assumption that I am a helpless mortal with thorough affirmations of all the elements I include in my divine heritage as a child of God, such as purity, safety, peace, unassailable integrity, wholeness, and health. As I do this, healing is experienced.
Consistently affirming the spiritual facts of being is particularly important when we are faced with, and feel frightened by, deceptive testimony of the physical senses. We need to let Truth fill our consciousness with the reality of our present perfection. As we do, the following truth is brought to fruition: “It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full. There is no door through which evil can enter, and no space for evil to fill in a mind filled with goodness. Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort” (Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 210).
Gratitude is a powerful tool in this healing work of negating error. It magnifies our sense of the good that is truly ever present in our lives, and then spiritual Truth destroys the suggestion of evil as real. Truth magnified enlarges, expands, amplifies, increases, augments, heightens, and brings out the perfection that is already there.
To the degree we side with only that which is real, legitimate, and good—and therefore with God—we magnify Truth in our lives; and then it becomes impossible to give weight or confidence to good’s opposite, error, which has no power to make itself real. We overcome every challenge that would hide what is really true about us in proportion to our admission that the reality of God, good, alone, is already at hand.
