THE HUMAN CONCEPT


Sin existed as a false claim before the human concept of sin was formed;
hence one's concept of error is not the whole of error. The human thought
does not constitute sin, but _vice versa_, sin constitutes the human or
physical concept.

Sin is both concrete and abstract. Sin was, and _is_, the lying supposition
that life, substance, and intelligence are both material and spiritual, and
yet are separate from God. The first iniquitous manifestation of sin was a
finity. The finite was self-arrayed against the infinite, the mortal
against immortality, and a sinner was the antipode of God.

Silencing self, _alias_ rising above corporeal personality, is what reforms
the sinner and destroys sin. In the ratio that the testimony of material
personal sense ceases, sin diminishes, until the false claim called sin is
finally lost for lack of witness.

The sinner created neither himself nor sin, but sin created the sinner;
that is, error made its man mortal, and this mortal was the image and
likeness of evil, not of good. Therefore the lie was, and _is_, collective
as well as individual. It was in no way contingent on Adam's thought, but
supposititiously self-created. In the words of our Master, it, the "devil"
(_alias_ evil), "was a liar, and the father of it."

This mortal material concept was never a creator, although as a serpent it
claimed to originate in the name of "the Lord," or good,--original evil;
second, in the name of human concept, it claimed to beget the offspring of