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Love has no opposite
Which one is more real: up or down? How about black or white? Day or night? We define all those things as opposites—they both exist as the inverse of each other. But in some cases, there’s a hidden misconception flying under the radar. If two things are truly opposites, then they cannot both be real! Think about light and darkness, for example. They both appear to have their own existence, but when you bring them together, it’s evident that only light has reality. “Darkness” isn’t really real—it’s just how we describe the absence of light.
Now let’s take a look at Love, a synonym for God. There’s no opposite to Love, either. You often hear hate and love described as opposites, and there are many other things that also appear to oppose Love—such as fear, ignorance, doubt, discouragement, and frustration. Yet all those things are really empty, since Love melts away hate, doubt, frustration, and fear just as light illuminates darkness. The question then becomes, “Were those awful feelings ever real?” The radical answer is … No!
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his followers, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God [Love, Spirit] and mammon [hate, fear, materiality]” (Matthew 6:24). I have often read this quote as a command, but recently I realized that Jesus is telling us it’s not even possible to serve two masters. Once we understand that divine Love is supreme, there is no logical place for the old thought that there can be something opposite to it. Love’s existence proves the nonexistence of its supposed opposite.
Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “God being everywhere and all-inclusive, how can He be absent or suggest the absence of omnipresence and omnipotence? How can there be more than all?” (p. 287). An understanding of God, Love, heals when we understand clearly that He has never had an opposite.
Last summer I was working at a summer camp as a Christian Science practitioner. One day I had a runny nose, watery eyes, and a stomachache all at the same time. It looked like a result of contagion from other folks around camp who appeared to have the same problem. I lay awake that night, trying to pray, but I began to get angry about the situation. Strong feelings of discouragement, self-righteousness, and fear were making a cozy home in my thought.
At one point the thought came to me: “Don’t be a slave to anger; be a servant to God!” I knew I had the ability to change how I was thinking about the situation, and I knew that a genuine shift in thought would heal. What I was forgetting was that in addition to embracing Love, I had to take a stand for the nonexistence of anger and fear. Second Timothy says, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (1:7). This “spirit of fear” was never mine to begin with.
I began to take a mental stand for Love, which includes joy, comfort, protection, encouragement, and fruition. This naturally involved unveiling fear and anger as unreal—not as opposites of Love, but as not having any existence at all. As I did this, within minutes I fell asleep and woke up to perfect health. I was never bothered by those symptoms for the rest of the summer, and the rest of the campers and staff were soon back to their usual healthy selves, as well.
Mary Baker Eddy writes elsewhere in Science and Health, “We lose the high signification of omnipotence, when after admitting that God, or good, is omnipresent and has all-power, we still believe there is another power, named evil” (p. 469). Whenever we are tempted to buy into feelings of sadness, anger, frustration, or anything that would keep us from feeling Love, we have every right to stand up and protest. The healing that inevitably results is not God making a late appearance; it is Love revealing that it has been real and present always—with no opposite.
—Jake Lowe, Houston, Texas