Article December 7, 1907 Issue

THE BEGINNING OF NOTHING

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

The Science of good calls evil nothing.—Mrs. Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings, p. 27.

In following up his investigation of Christian Science, the student is often questioned respecting what is called the origin of evil, by those who feel that they must learn all about what mortal man was warned not to know, and which must become unknown before one can be wholly free from the enslavement of belief in it and from the dire conditions pertaining thereto. There is no profit whatever in pursuing this inquiry, for however long and diligent the search one must end where he begins, he can find nothing true in the unreal. The question, Where did evil originate? is asked from the standpoint of the questioner's own cognizance of and participation in this belief; while to understand the answer of Christian Science his apprehension must rise to the fact of God's infinitude. We correctly define evil as the human sense of the absence of good, but this sense never becomes a positive and active presence, the relation of evil to Truth keeping it within the limits of the suppositional. God is infinite, hence there can be no absence of good. One can as easily grasp a shadow, describe its quality and texture, and analyze its substance, as to locate the ends of nothingness or join them into a circle of reality.

There can be no basis for a claim of cause or effect apart from the infinite, but this is what a sense of evil purports to be. Infinite Mind, which knows all, does not know evil; the infinite presence of good, which includes all, does not contain it; the infinite creator, who made all, did not make it; omnipotence, infinite power, cannot do evil nor allow it to be done. What then shall we do with this supposition which is "neither person, place, nor thing"? (Science and Health, p. 71.) Since of itself it has no mind to think, no voice to speak, no power to act, no creator to father it, no presence in which to dwell, what shall we conclude regarding it? Unless we provide it a home in our consciousness, give it voice or lend it power, what can it be to us? If we are recognizing and obeying God as supreme, serving no other gods, seeking no other consciousness of Life, what need we care about evil further than to condemn it for its falsity?

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