Article September 26, 1914 Issue

In the Bible we are admonished to "overcome evil with...

Judge Clifford P. Smith—New York, N. Y.

The Outlook

In the Bible we are admonished to "overcome evil with good." What is the nature of good and the nature of evil by which the one is superior to the other? Where do good and evil come in contact so that the one can be used to overcome the other? In the same book good and evil are sometimes personified, but they are oftener defined impersonally in mental terms. Some of the Scriptural names for good are "mind," "mind of the Spirit," "spiritual understanding," also "truth." Some of the Biblical names for evil are "fleshly mind," "carnal mind," also "error," "deceit," and the like.

Christ Jesus defined evil as "evil thoughts." He resolved all of "the things which defile a man," into thoughts that are evil. Nor did he leave the subject there. If evil thoughts were not different and separate from true consciousness, there would be no deliverance from them. Hence we have his further description of evil as a liar, or lie, and his emphatic statement that there is no truth in it (John viii. 44). Such being the nature of good and evil, the scene of the warfare between Spirit and flesh must be the so-called human mind, the consciousness of both good and evil. This must be the meeting-point where evil can be overcome with good. Here is where the errors of material sense can be corrected with the truth of spiritual sense.

The Hebrew proverb is scientific: "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Evil appears and disappears only in the so-called human mind. The kingdom of God is in the consciousness which He creates; that is, the consciousness of absolute good. It was nothing less, therefore, than the practice of Christian Science which Paul and Peter summed up in their precepts: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus;" "Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind." This true mentality, this spiritual thinking, is godliness itself, and we are warned in the Bible against denying the power of godliness. Doing that, we are told, is resisting the truth. "Finally, brethren," Mrs. Eddy writes on page 6 of "Christian Science Versus Pantheism," "let us continue to denounce evil as the illusive claim that God is not supreme, and continue to fight it until it disappears,—but not as one that beateth the mist, but lifteth his head above it and putteth his foot upon a lie."

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