Driving along on a bright, sunny day, the driver sees water ahead on the road. What should he do? Slow down to prevent a skid? Look for a detour to avoid the water altogether? The experienced driver does neither. He deals with the situation mentally by denying the false evidence before his eyes, and driving ahead without fear. Why? Because he has seen this play of light and heat waves before, and knows it is a mirage. Experience has taught him that when he arrives at that point where the water seemed to be, he will find dry pavement. He would never think to ask, “Where did the water go?”
In Christian Science, we learn that evil is a similar kind of illusion. Though it may seem real to the physical senses, evil in whatever form—sin, sickness, death, terrorism, accident, violence, lack of supply, economic disruption, family or community discord, or environmental disaster—is a deception about God and His creation. The reality, as the Bible makes clear, is that God is all-powerful, ever-present, and all-knowing. In the first chapter of Genesis we read of the spiritual creation, complete, without error or evil, and man as God’s image and likeness. “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good,” Genesis 1:31 tells us. And from First John 4:8 we learn that God is Love itself. A loving God could never subject His children, made in His image, to suffering from any kind of evil.
When evil seems to present itself, the Christian Scientist handles the situation mentally in the same way a driver responds to the eye’s false report of water on the road. He calms fear by understanding the reality of God’s creation to be free from evil or error, and moves ahead confidently, knowing the illusion of trouble will dissolve.
