Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/322

302 sickness, sin, and death on the basis of his argument. Understanding the nothingness of material

things, he spoke of flesh and Spirit as the two opposites, — as Truth and error, not contributing in any way to each other's happiness and existence. Jesus said: “Do men gather grapes of thorns?” Paul asked: “What concord hath Christ with Belial?”

Is there a present or an eternal copartnership between error and Truth, between flesh and Spirit? God is as

incapable of producing sin, sickness, and death, as He is of experiencing these errors. How then is it possible for Him to create man subject to this triad of errors, when man is made in the divine likeness?

Does God create man, who is called material, out of Himself, Spirit? Does evil proceed from Good? Does God commit a fraud on humanity, by making man capable of sin, and then condemning him for it? Would any one call it wise and good to create the primitive, and then punish its derivative?

Can evil be derived from Good? Impossible! Was there original self-creative sin? Then there must have

been more than one Creator, more than one God. In common justice, we must admit that God will not punish man for doing what He created him capable of doing, and knew, from the outset, that he would do. God “is of purer eyes than to behold evil.” We sustain Truth, not by accepting, but by condemning a lie.

Jesus said of personified evil, that he was “a liar, and the father of it.” Truth neither creates a lie, a capacity to lie, nor a liar. If we would only relinquish the