Article May 22, 1909 Issue

THE NOTHINGNESS OF EVIL

L. N. BLYDENBURG

The effort to destroy evil does not really arouse it to increased activity, although it may seem to do so. It only throws a stronger light on evil and brings it into stronger contrast with good, thus presenting a vivid mental picture of evil, which gives the impression of aroused activity. Notwithstanding we are taught the nothingness of evil, and that it has no power, except the seeming and temporary effect which false belief gives it (though evil has in fact no intelligence), we sometimes hear it said that evil is subtle, aggressive, arrogant, aroused, active, etc., when it is only seemingly so. To those who understand the teaching of our Leader, and who know that evil has really no power, these expressions may not be misleading, but to others they are contradictory and seem to imply an independent intelligence and active energy in evil. For such, an explanation of the cause of the seeming activity of evil may be necessary.

Mrs. Eddy writes "Evil calls itself something, when it is nothing" (Science and Health, p. 287). Christ Jesus characterized the belief in evil as a liar from the beginning. The following may serve to furnish a practical illustration: An evil habit has been acquired, and the victim of the habit, upon realizing that it is abnormal and vicious, is seeking to abandon it. So long as he continued to indulge the habit, he did not realize its negative strength; but once resistance to it becomes active, the habit seems to take on activity to hinder its destruction. The real activity is in the direction of reform, which unmasks the power of a habit that is based entirely on the false belief in the desirability of the harmful course of action. When the belief is destroyed which was the sole source of the seeming power of habit, the destruction of the habit follows as a natural consequence, and right living asserts itself as the only real way, for there is no intelligent reason for the continuance of any wrong habit, and the governing impulse of the habit is entirely destroyed because it had no foundation in the law of God, good. It is then seen that the habit was destroyed when ignorance of the truth was dispelled.

Christian Science teaches that good is active and positive. Evil seems resistant only because of human ignorance and the failure to perceive the power of good. Evil seems attractive only to those who are ignorant of good; it is repulsive to those who have the understanding of good, and this is the law of the destruction of evil. The seeming power of evil is in inertia and stagnation, not in progress and unfoldment. We become conscious of the seeming resistance of evil when we attempt progress in the line of right thinking and doing, and therefore it seems to become aroused and active, but if active efforts for reform continue, the seeming power of evil diminishes to the degree that the power of good governs our actions. The railroad train, when it is standing still, has the same resistance of inertia to the power which causes motion, as it has when the attempt to start is made, but it is not noticed till the driving-wheels of the engine begin to slip on the track and the friction so caused generates the flying sparks. The false mortal sense which fails to perceive the eternal activity of good, makes evil appear to mortal sense and produces the destructive friction of evil in mortal existence.

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THE NOTHINGNESS OF EVIL

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