Article September 19, 1908 Issue

The question presented to every man is really this: To...

Rev. William P. McKenzie

Boston Times

The question presented to every man is really this: To what do you give power? Evil or good? Christian Scientists, by virtue of their experience, are confirmed optimists. They have seen healing accomplished where human love and human skill had given up hope. They have seen apparently incurable bad habits changed with such a change in life as yearly takes place in the earth when the barren cold yields to the beneficent warmth of spring. They have seen bitterness and cynicism and cruelty melt away, and kindness and joy and gentle courtesy take their place. They find that their faithful application of the teachings of Christian Science to all the problems of life has brought so many solutions and proofs of the power of good to overcome evil that they can foresee the ultimate triumph of good; and "forgetting the things that are behind," they press forward in the direction of that goal.

Our fellow-beings approach the problems of life from many sides, giving emphasis to a variety of supposed powers. There are various forms of fatalism, according to which men allow themselves to believe that both good and evil are equivalently foreordained, one being as inevitable as the other. We have said that Christian Scientists are optimists because they hope for good, and reasons have been given for discarding theories which are fatalistic or pessimistic. But we do not rest in hope; we must rise to faith. It is through faith or understanding that all overcoming is accomplished. "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Christian Science revives that faith in good which in ancient days was so potent. It shows how to obey with scientific certainty the direction of Paul: "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." But in this, its method of establishing by demonstration the reality of good, it meets the criticism of those who believe in the reality and permanence and power of evil. In Jesus' day the people likewise believed in the reality of evil, and supposed that there was an adversary to good, a personal devil. Christ Jesus characterized this devil of his contemporaries as a murderer and false witness. "There is no truth in him," he said; "when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested," writes John, "that he might destroy the works of the devil." Christ was revealed to disintegrate the whole fabric of lies, to unweave the reticulated complexities of deceit, to erase from human minds their false beliefs in sickness and sin, and thus emancipate man from a deceived condition into the "glorious liberty of the children of God." All Christians should be enlisted to become victors over every phase of evil.

Christian Science maintains that the eternal Principle underlying all reality is God. Does any one naturally conceive of this Principle as being manifested in any condition which is admittedly adverse to God? Can a condition entitled "a murderer from the beginning" or "a liar, and the father of it," be expressive of God's nature or be the agent of God's will? We must be careful, then, about accepting philosophies which make evil the agent of good, or which give evil an equivalent existence with Deity.

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