Editorial May 8, 1943 Issue

The Falsity of Fatalism

Paul Stark Seeley

The serviceman who assured a dear one that he was as safe as a good thought, saw something of the spiritual fact that real manhood is not made up of matter. He glimpsed the truth that man is what Christian Science teaches, an individual idea of Mind, living in Mind, enjoying the security and substantiality of Mind, God, and therefore as natively superior to the threat of destructive, material forces as Mind itself.

One in combat service, not understanding God, may be tempted to accept a fatalistic viewpoint. The evidence of dominating material forces may appear overwhelming. In the services it is sometimes said that the enemy's shells and bombs are "tagged," and that if one comes tagged for you, there is no use trying to avert it. But who puts on the tags? Just who prearranges so that fatality is the individual's lot? The Psalmist saw the God-ordered plan for man when he said, "There shall no evil befall thee." Unless God is too intelligent and good to parcel out destructive evil to you and me why bother to defend the hope for a better world?

Fatalism is the belief that all things happen according to a prearranged fate which the individual cannot possibly avoid. It would have us believe man is the inevitable victim, sooner or later, of destructive evil. In contrast, the Bible teaches that man's true being is the son of God, and that as this spiritual fact is understood, he finds that he shares God's dominion over all evil. There is no fatalism in the universe of Mind. Man is predestined to express only good.

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