Editorial April 11, 1942 Issue

Personal Goodness

George Shaw Cook

Objection is made to the statement, "The effect of Principle is always good; that of personal sense is never so," but if one accepts the first part of this statement as being true, he will have to agree with the second part, if he would be logical and scientific. Otherwise, he would be in agreement with the belief that there is more than one cause. Christian Science teaches that there is only one cause—God, infinite good, the source of all actual goodness.

There is, in belief, a kind of goodness which appears to human sense to be genuine, but which is never more than a counterfeit of the true goodness that emanates from immortal divine Mind. Belief in the reality of human or personal goodness, or that any mortal person is the source of goodness, was definitely rejected by Jesus when he said, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." And on page 147 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says, "A pure affection takes form in goodness, but Science alone reveals the divine Principle of goodness and demonstrates its rules."

It would appear from the foregoing that goodness, if absolute, is immortal and divine. It is an attribute of that Mind which is all good and always good. It has no other source. And to believe that real goodness originates in a material personality is, to say the least, a mistake. Another erroneous belief is that there are finite, mortal minds capable of knowing both good and evil, to which Mrs. Eddy refers, on page 481 of Science and Health, as follows: "The forbidden fruit of knowledge, against which wisdom warns man, is the testimony of error, declaring existence to be at the mercy of death, and good and evil to be capable of commingling. This is the significance of the Scripture concerning this 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil,'—this growth of material belief, of which it is said: 'In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.'"

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