When Jesus was "led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil," he asserted his inseparability from his heavenly Father by quoting Scripture, including "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." No wonder we read a few verses later, "Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him."See Matt. 4:1-11; cf. Deut. 6:16 This report is many centuries old, but Jesus' example has lost none of its relevance for today.
Accordingly, we do well when we see trouble ahead to remain alert to our true, spiritual nature and also to the falsity of the error against which we need to defend ourselves. If we regard ourselves as struggling mortals, grimly holding on to the cliff of spirituality by our fingernails, liable at any moment to drop into the abyss of error, we are not in a good position to repulse the devil's attacks.
Happily, however, we can know that such a picture is never true of us or anybody else. We can humbly follow Christ Jesus' example and assert our unity with the heavenly Father as His likeness; we can gratefully exercise our prerogative of freedom and dominion. Success in the battle doesn't depend on our own ability to fight nor on our own courage. It depends solely on our God-derived strength and purity. As children of God, wholly spiritual, we can no more fall from perfection than can Almighty God Himself. This fact, realized, gives us divine strength.
What is the nature of the attacker? In the Manual of The Mother Church Mrs. Eddy instructs, "It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind." Man., Art. VIII, Sect. 6 Aggressive mental suggestion, then, is the enemy.
"Aggressive" certainly describes the carnal mind's purported activity of initiating or provoking a battle. But this mind's claim to such activity is absurd. We read in the Bible, "In the beginning was the Word." John 1:1 So it is manifestly impossible for a so-called carnal mind to begin anything. The Word of God, divine Principle, is already in operation and valid wherever an argument seems to be originating. The Word cannot be preceded, predated, nor preempted. Indeed God's Word in its wholeness and perfection is the very foundation of Christianity, and nothing can undermine this foundation. Nothing can wrest the initiative from the divine creator nor mount an attack on the All-in-all. Actually the devil's claim to aggression is its downfall. It shows that evil is utterly unlike God, good. Devoid of divinity, it is devoid of reality and must inevitably perish in its flamboyant machinations.
The word "mental" in the phrase "aggressive mental suggestion" highlights the carnal mind's claim to be a mental reality. But how could this possibly be so? Christianity teaches that there is only one infinite God, whom Christian Science reveals as one infinite Mind. Now, if it is really true that there is only one Mind and this one is infinite, where could a second or carnal mind come from? How could anything be genuinely mental except the one omnipresent Mind and its creation? In Mind's infinitude there is clearly no room, no scope, for anything but divine ideas. This all-pervading Mind knows all that is known, and anything unknown to this Mind has no existence. By posing as mental, evil's claims kill themselves, for once they are exposed and seen for what they are—namely falsity—they inevitably disappear.
Finally, the word "suggestion" reminds us of the hypothetical and fictitious nature of what is involved here— not facts, not unchangeable truths, but mere suggestions. Sometimes these take the form of whispered innuendoes, sometimes insistent shouts. Sometimes they seem ingratiating and attractive, at other times objectionable and insulting. Whatever guise they assume, they have not an ounce of truth, not a vestige of validity. Their utterances are never worth hearing nor heeding. They aim to draw us down into belief in materialism with all its attendant problems of time, space, physicality, and depression. By reversing such suggestions, we arrive at the truth of our being—our likeness to the one infinitely good God. Adherence to the truth ensures our safety and eliminates the falsities. Mrs. Eddy writes, "The truths of immortal Mind sustain man, and they annihilate the fables of mortal mind, whose flimsy and gaudy pretensions, like silly moths, singe their own wings and fall into dust." Science and Health, p. 103
