Editorial March 17, 1928 Issue

Evil Not To Be Feared

Duncan Sinclair

There may be said to be two ways of regarding evil, one the way the world looks upon it, the other the way in which Christian Science beholds it. How does the world in general look upon evil? Nobody, surely, needs to be told: everybody knows that the great majority regard evil as a mighty power working in the midst of men, often silently and stealthily, for their downfall, their unhappiness, their discomfiture, a power which they have continually to be on guard against in order to circumvent its methods and aims. The world in general regards evil as a reality, as an active and oftentimes an apparently intelligently directed force opposing good, and not infrequently seeming to do so successfully.

How, on the other hand, does Christian Science regard evil? Not at all after the manner just set forth. Christian Science regards evil as an error of the so-called human mind, as a dream of material sense, as an utter illusion; and this way of beholding evil, so called, has an absolutely correct and scientific basis. What is this basis? It is the fact that God is infinite good. Admit that God, good, is infinite, and evil must be acknowledged to be unreal. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 186) Mrs. Eddy writes: "Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth. It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent. Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil."

It is very apparent, then, that Christian Science is paying full homage to God when it ascribes to Him all power and all presence, and gives no reality or power to evil. What are mortals doing when they believe in the reality of evil and fear evil? They are allowing the truth about God to be displaced in their thought by an utter falsity; and when they allow the usurper to gain possession and perhaps to overwhelm them, it is but a short step to their downfall in some direction. The student of Christian Science soon learns what a large factor fear is in inducing disease and preventing healing, and how potent in belief sin is to do exactly the same. Whether he is dealing with his own case or helping another, he knows that sin and the fear of evil must be destroyed through the understanding of divine Truth in order to bring about harmonious results.

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