Editorial December 1, 1945 Issue

No Necessity for Evil

Margaret Morrison

In the legendary record of creation given in the Bible, beginning in the second chapter of Genesis, we find that a curse was pronounced on Adam and his dream progeny. Hence there seems to be in the mind of mortals a belief in the necessity of evil, that "in this world" at least man cannot hope to escape evil. But the law that would condemn men to the necessity of evil, of sin, disease, and death, is no law, but merely a false belief as to the origin and nature of man. It is but a phase of the Adam-dream and is to be denied identity, actuality, or power. This seeming law is without a lawgiver, and without power of enforcement. It has no origin in God, divine Principle, and one is free to repudiate it and annul its claims.

No one is under any necessity to sin, to suffer, to be sick, or to die. Rather is each one under the necessity of denying and proving unreal this dream of life in matter which condemns men to be the slaves of sense, sentenced to drudgery, dependent on precarious ways of earning a living, subject to the uncertainties of materialism, thus becoming the victims of fear, greed, and selfishness. On page 183 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says: "Can the agriculturist, according to belief, produce a crop without sowing the seed and awaiting its germination according to the laws of nature? The answer is no, and yet the Scriptures inform us that sin, or error, first caused the condemnation of man to till the ground, and indicate that obedience to God will remove this necessity. Truth never made error necessary, nor devised a law to perpetuate error."

Basing its teaching on the true record of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis, and on the proof given by Christ Jesus of the truth of that record, Christian Science is lifting from the hearts of men the burden of belief that evil is necessary. It is declaring and proving that since God is good, good is the necessity of being; that man as the image and likeness of God is not in a state of subjection, but of dominion, reflecting the power and goodness of the Principle of his being.

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