Christian Theism.
Scholastic theology elaborates the proposition that
evil is a factor of good, and that to believe in the reality [15]
of evil is essential to a rounded sense of the existence of
good.
This frail hypothesis is founded upon the basis of mate-
rial and mortal evidence—only upon what the shifting
mortal senses confirm and frail human reason accepts. [20]
The Science of Soul reverses this proposition, overturns
the testimony of the five erring senses, and reveals in
clearer divinity the existence of good only; that is, of
God and His idea.
This postulate of divine Science only needs to be con- [25]
ceded, to afford opportunity for proof of its correctness
and the clearer discernment of good.
Seek the Anglo-Saxon term for God, and you will
find it to be good; then define good as God, and you
will find that good is omnipotence, has all power; it fills [30]
all space, being omnipresent; hence, there is neither place [1]
nor power left for evil. Divest your thought, then, of
the mortal and material view which contradicts the ever-
presence and all-power of good; take in only the immor-
tal facts which include these, and where will you see or [5]
feel evil, or find its existence necessary either to the origin
or ultimate of good?
It is urged that, from his original state of perfec-
tion, man has fallen into the imperfection that requires
evil through which to develop good. Were we to [10]
admit this vague proposition, the Science of man could
never be learned; for in order to learn Science, we
begin with the correct statement, with harmony and
its Principle; and if man has lost his Principle and
its harmony, from evidences before him he is inca- [15]
pable of knowing the facts of existence and its con-
comitants: therefore to him evil is as real and eternal
as good, God! This awful deception is evil's umpire
and empire, that good, God, understood, forcibly
destroys. [20]
What appears to mortals from their standpoint to be
the necessity for evil, is proven by the law of opposites
to be without necessity. Good is the primitive Princi-
ple of man; and evil, good's opposite, has no Principle,
and is not, and cannot be, the derivative of good. [25]
Thus evil is neither a primitive nor a derivative, but
is suppositional; in other words, a lie that is incapable
of proof—therefore, wholly problematical.
The Science of Truth annihilates error, deprives evil
of all power, and thereby destroys all error, sin, sickness, [30]
disease, and death. But the sinner is not sheltered from
suffering from sin: he makes a great reality of evil, iden-
tifies himself with it, fancies he finds pleasure in it, and [1]
will reap what he sows; hence the sinner must endure
the effects of his delusion until he awakes from it.