Editorial October 17, 1942 Issue

The Scientific Explanation of Evil Is Its Destruction

Alfred Pittman

Christians generally have acknowledged the goodness and allness of God, as proclaimed in the Scriptures; and in so doing, Christian Science shows, they have been very near the secret of spiritual power as manifested by Christ Jesus. That they have been so largely deprived of the use and benefits of this power is due, Science further makes plain, to their simultaneous acceptance of evil as real, and their consequent attempts to explain it and otherwise deal with it as a reality.

In view of the apparently active and powerful nature of evil and its seeming presence on every side, one can see how such a conclusion and such procedures came about, while at the same time recognizing their fundamentally illogical character. For if God, or good, is All, it is obvious that there can be no evil. Mary Baker Eddy, the revered Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, departed from the course of all previous Christian theologians since the time of Jesus by discerning this simple fact and then holding to it firmly in all her subsequent teaching and practice; and there can be no doubt that the vitality of the Christian Science movement from its outset and its vigorous growth ever since have been largely the effects of this new-old Christian teaching.

It is in fact an old teaching, just as it is new again in this age. Like the whole of Christian Science, it has its roots in the doctrines of Jesus. As Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 554): "The first effort of error has been and is to impute to God the creation of whatever is sinful and mortal; but infinite Mind sets at naught such a mistaken belief. Jesus defined this opposite of God and His creation better than we can, when he said, 'He is a liar, and the father of it.'" After quoting some other related statements of the Master she adds, "All these sayings were to show that mind in matter is the author of itself, and is simply a falsity and illusion."

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