Editorial December 12, 1936 Issue

Resisting Evil Effectually

George Shaw Cook

"Resist the devil, and he will flee from you," wrote James; and on page 406 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Resist evil—error of every sort—and it will flee from you." However, neither the above-quoted Scriptural passage nor the passage from the Christian Science textbook need be thought to mean that in order effectually to resist evil, or error, it is necessary to fight it. There may be times when the student of Christian Science seems to have a fight on his hands, and the fight may seem to be prolonged into a series of battles, but if so, it so because he has not reached the spiritual heights on which Christ Jesus habitually dwelt, and which enabled him instantly and always to see evil as unreal and to demonstrate it unreality.

For one to believe that a fight is necessary in order to overcome sin or sickness would imply that these errors are tangible realities against which one must struggle, or else be overcome by them. To contend with evil as though it were real and powerful would obviously not be the way to overcome it, for evil can only be resisted successfully through the realization of its utter unreality and powerlessness. One does not, for example, overcome the temptation to sin by fighting it as though it were a real entity, but by calmly and with quiet firmness resisting in thought the belief that it has power, persuasiveness, or attraction; by seeing that it is not of God, and is therefore without real authority.

As with sin, so it is with the belief of sickness. One does not effectually resist its encroachment and free oneself from bondage to disease by regarding it as something real with which one must strenuously contend, but by quietly seeking, knowing, understanding—and thereby demonstrating—its nothingness. When writing on this subject, Mrs. Eddy said on page 445 of Science and Health, "Christian Science silences human will, quiets fear with Truth and Love, and illustrates the unlabored motion of the divine energy in healing the sick."

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