Editorial September 5, 1914 Issue

Good the Only Power

Archibald McLellan

In something like a half score instances in Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy uses the words God and good synonymously, as, for instance, "God, or good, never made man capable of sin" (p. 480); and again (p. 398), "Evil has no power, no intelligence, for God is good, and therefore good is infinite, is All." IT is likewise upon the basis of an entirely good God that Mrs. Eddy elaborated her discovery of the Christ Science, and thus gave to an ever-increasing number of Christians a saner, more consistent, and more comforting concept of Deity than they formerly held. That this newer and truer concept of God has helped them to become better men and women, and to deal more justly and compassionately with all mankind, is, to them at least, a settled fact, and through this improved understanding they are giving up the erroneous belief in a dual power, good and evil, with its correlated belief that sin and disease are a necessary part of human experience.

As Mrs. Eddy writes on page 381 of Science and Health, "Ignorant of our God-given rights, we submit to unjust decrees, and the bias of education enforces this slavery." That sin and sickness are in the same category, and equally to be resisted and overcome, she makes clear in her elucidation of the previous statement: "Be no more willing to suffer the illusion that you are sick or that some disease is developing in the system, than you are to yield to a sinful temptation on the ground that sin has its necessities." We occasionally find persons who try to justify the doing of evil upon the plea that good has resulted from it, or will result from it; but this on the face of it is an impossibility. To assert that good can be the product of evil is to assert that "sweet water and bitter" can proceed from the same fountain, a logically unthinkable proposition which necessarily assumes the reality and desirability of evil.

It cannot be supposed that persons who desire good to prevail in the affairs of men will voluntarily resort to the practice of evil, unless they believe that evil is more powerful than good and that good cannot do as much for the welfare and prosperity of the race as can evil. The logical outcome of this belief would be the postulate that evil is primary and good secondary, a postulate to which no Christian can assent and which finds no justification in the teachings of Christ Jesus. Our Master in no wise sanctioned evil in cause or effect, and to be consistent Christians his followers must avoid even the semblance of evil.

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