Editorial March 25, 1922 Issue

The Perfect Will of God

Ella W. Hoag

One of the deepest needs of the human heart, though perhaps somewhat undefined, has always been to find a God whose will could be relied upon as perfect, expressing yesterday, to-day, and forever the all-inclusiveness of active good. Jesus' entire life-work proved that the will of God, understood and obeyed, would bring the acme of all that is blissful and desirable to those obeying it. The ordinary theological teaching has, however unwittingly, inculcated the belief that God's will would deprive mankind of much that is pleasant and desirable. Thus, it came to be regarded as something to be avoided rather than sought, and rarely could one be found who could honestly say he wanted to know and obey it.

On the contrary, Christian Science, following in the line of Jesus' teaching and living, is awakening men to know that God's will is, even as Paul declared it to be, "good, and acceptable, and perfect." This starts one out from a new standpoint, and as he begins to contemplate the fact that from a God who is infinite, divine, perfect Love there can go forth no purpose or effect but that which is loving and holy, beautiful and wise, joy-giving and joy-fulfilling, he begins to be willing to taste this truth, by living in some degree of obedience to it. Beginning to obey God, good, he begins to receive; and so there commences to dawn upon him the fact that God's will alone is good and that the claims to another will, or an opposite, must be falsities and their so-called pleasures transient and unsatisfying. Who would cling to a sham and a lie which offers at most but shadows and fleeting phantasms, when he could lay hold of eternal wisdom, intelligence, and glory? It seems almost absurd to imagine that any one would intentionally continue in the stupid, lethargic dream of satisfaction in an ignorant, sinful will, when the sublime will of the Almighty God can be had for the seeking.

For over fifty years Christian Science has been at work proclaiming the perfect will of God and the entire desirability of living in obedience to it. It has been showing that all is to be gained and nothing lost if one will turn to this glorious will of God with all his heart; and, obeying, press forward to triumph over all that is unreal, tormenting, and deceiving. In order to do this, every Christian Scientist must rise to his individual demonstration of unity with the will of God, and thus gain an all-embracing trust in the power of that perfect will to govern every one, everywhere, at all times. This also implies the necessity of recognizing the claims of a supposititious will apart from God, and of winning the victory over all such claims through the relinquishment of belief in their reality, satisfaction, or power. In "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 201) Mrs. Eddy writes of the human will thus: "The Science of Paul's declaration resolves the element misnamed matter into its original sin, or human will; that will which would oppose bringing the qualities of Spirit into subjection to Spirit."

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