Editorial November 9, 1946 Issue

Good Is Never Absent

Margaret Morrison

One of the results of a belief in dualism, positive and negative forces, a divisible God, is the supposition of the absence of God, or good, and the consequent suppositional presence of evil, which presents itself in many and various forms. To the thought unillumined by Christian Science, which teaches the allness and oneness of God, good, these negations or illusions seem real, substantial, ofttimes insurmountable, but good is never negated, never absent. It is a truism to say that good can no more be negated by suppositional evil than light can be extinguished by darkness. "The light shineth in darkness," never extinguished, though the darkness may comprehend it not.

On page 287 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes: "God being everywhere and all-inclusive, how can He be absent or suggest the absence of omnipresence and omnipotence? How can there be more than all?" Here we have the clear teaching of one God, one Mind—not only all-presence but all-power. Can All be absent? Can there be another power that can negate All? Can nothing make itself something? Throughout her writings Mrs. Eddy is most insistent on the necessity of seeing all evil as nothing, the supposed absence of good. She says this is the only way to handle evil scientifically (see Miscellaneous Writings, p. 334).

The only way one can conceive of God as never absent is to recognize Him as Spirit, which Christ Jesus declared Him to be. Spirit is Mind; therefore Mind is never absent but forever present, expressed in infinite divine ideas. Spirit is Love, divine Love; therefore Love is never absent, but ever present, reflected in the intelligence, tenderness, and power of its own divine qualities. No matter, then, what the opposing evidence of the material senses may seem to be, good is ever present, never for an instant absent in any point of what is called time or space. Here is the Comforter, the Truth which leads into all truth, speaking comfortingly to all who seem to dwell in darkness, in the belief that God is absent, His light and love far off.

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