Editorial October 24, 1925 Issue

Evil Has No Power

Albert F. Gilmore

The Christian Scientist is successful in the application of divine Principle to the problems of life precisely in proportion to his understanding of the all-power of God and his allegiance to his conviction. There is no room for halfway assurance. The conviction must be complete, the application constant. Even a shade of doubt as to God's omnipotence admits the possibility that error possesses some semblance of reality and has, therefore, some degree of control over a mortal's destiny.

Mrs. Eddy dealt with this situation with her characteristic directness in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 10). "Note this," she writes, "that if you have power in error, you forfeit the power that Truth bestows, and its salutary influence on yourself and others." This warning none can afford to disregard. Error of itself possesses no power, either inherent or acquired. If it seems to possess reality and power, this fallacy is wholly due to the false concept of the so-called mortal mind, which would make reality of its own objective states. It is an anomaly that mortals will build up in thought something which they believe to be real, give it power, and then stand in awe of it, of mortal mind's own false, seeming creation. Christian Science has uncovered this anomalous situation, and in consequence mortal belief will in some degree cease to restrict and hamper human experience through inculcating fear.

The proofs of this uncovering are ample. The destruction of evil and its claims to power rests on a far more substantial basis than human belief. It rests upon demonstrated fact, the understanding of God and the operation of divine law. To the frightened sense of one suffering from a belief of acute illness, the mere statement that evil has no power may seem an absurdity; but when, through spiritual understanding, the false belief is destroyed and the sense of health restored, the demonstrator of God's power has proved that there are good grounds for his protestations of the all-power of God. His arguments are strengthened with the strong bulwarks of proof; and exemplification of the destruction of evil through spiritual power passes from the realm of the speculative into the category of established fact, demonstrated truth.

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