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.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

THE VALUE OF HUMILITY