Article April 15, 1916 Issue

Divine Will

WILLIAM D. MC CRACKAN, M.A.

IT is due to prevailing misconceptions concerning the nature of God that humanity should so generally dread the divine will. So constantly has God been pictured as the author of evil, of suffering, loss, catastrophe, and the like, that His will has come to mean for most people a power productive of evil. Hence when humanity is bidden to bow to the divine will, it has been taught to expect a blow instead of a blessing. What a caricature of that will which operates only to benefit, heal, comfort, and save! By a strange perversity, humanity has been made to look for adversity from the very source whence flows a never-ceasing stream of prosperity. It has been induced to shun the very mention of God's will; to look upon obedience to Him as a penance instead of a privilege; to attempt to propitiate its own false concept of God with material sacrifices, hoping thereby to placate omnipotence and avert punishment.

Christian Science is liberating humanity from all forms of fear, including the fear of a man-made, incredible, and impossible conception of the divine will. To bow to that will in loving obedience involves no sacrifice of anything good or desirable, but only enriches mankind with superabundant bounty, ever at hand and ever satisfying. Respecting this the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews has feelingly said, "Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever."

Here it may be asked, How does Christian Science enable those who follow its teachings to welcome the divine will and to place themselves thus joyously under its law and power? By the simple process of correcting false views of God's character and qualities with a scientifically accurate understanding of His true nature. God is infinitely good. He is denominated by John as Love itself. Whatever God is. He is that absolutely, so that He cannot possess characteristics which are incompatible with His own perfection. He cannot entertain the mortal qualities which so greatly disturb the lives of human beings, such as envy, hate, wrath, desire for revenge, fear, or any sense of lack and poverty. These are some of the mortal characteristics which produce crime, disease, and disaster, and so they cannot be reckoned as attributes of divinity.

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