Ways Higher than Our Ways

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1      A LIE has only one chance of successful deception, —
         to be accounted true. Evil seeks to fasten all error
3      upon God, and so make the lie seem part of eternal Truth.
         Emerson says, "Hitch your wagon to a star." I say,
         Be allied to the deific power, and all that is good will aid
6      your journey, as the stars in their courses fought against
         Sisera. (Judges v. 20.) Hourly, in Christian Science,
         man thus weds himself with God, or rather he ratifies a
9      union predestined from all eternity; but evil ties its wagon-
         load of offal to the divine chariots, — or seeks so to do, —
         that its vileness may be christened purity, and its darkness
12    get consolation from borrowed scintillations.

         Jesus distinctly taught the arrogant Pharisees that, from
         the beginning, their father, the devil, was the would-be
15    murderer of Truth. A right apprehension of the wonder-
         ful utterances of him who "spake as never man spake,"
         would despoil error of its borrowed plumes, and trans-
18    form the universe into a home of marvellous light, — "a
         consummation devoutly to be wished."

         Error says God must know evil because He knows all
21    things; but Holy Writ declares God told our first parents
         that in the day when they should partake of the fruit of
         evil, they must surely die. Would it not absurdly follow

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1      that God must perish, if He knows evil and evil neces-
         sarily leads to extinction? Rather let us think of God as
3      saying, I am infinite good; therefore I know not evil.
         Dwelling in light, I can see only the brightness of My
         own glory.

6      Error may say that God can never save man from sin,
         if He knows and sees it not; but God says, I am too pure
         to behold iniquity, and destroy everything that is unlike
9      Myself.

         Many fancy that our heavenly Father reasons thus:
         If pain and sorrow were not in My mind, I could not
12    remedy them, and wipe the tears from the eyes of My chil-
         dren. Error says you must know grief in order to console
         it. Truth, God, says you oftenest console others in
15    troubles that you have not. Is not our comforter always
         from outside and above ourselves?

         God says, I show My pity through divine law, not
18    through human. It is My sympathy with and My knowl-
         edge of harmony (not inharmony) which alone enable Me
         to rebuke, and eventually destroy, every supposition of
21    discord.

         Error says God must know death in order to strike at
         its root; but God saith, I am ever-conscious Life, and
24    thus I conquer death; for to be ever conscious of Life is
         to be never conscious of death. I am All. A knowledge
         of aught beside Myself is impossible.

27    If such knowledge of evil were possible to God, it would
         lower His rank.

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1      With God, knowledge is necessarily foreknowledge; and
         foreknowledge and foreordination must be one, in an in-
3      finite Being. What Deity foreknows, Deity must fore–
         ordain; else He is not omnipotent, and, like ourselves,
         He foresees events which are contrary to His creative will,
6      yet which He cannot avert.

         If God knows evil at all, He must have had foreknowl-
         edge thereof; and if He foreknew it, He must virtually
9      have intended it, or ordered it aforetime, — foreordained
         it; else how could it have come into the world?

         But this we cannot believe of God; for if the supreme
12    good could predestine or foreknow evil, there would be
         sin in Deity, and this would be the end of infinite moral
         unity. "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness,
15    how great is that darkness!" On the contrary, evil is
         only a delusive deception, without any actuality which
         Truth can know.