Article November 1, 1952 ISSUE

THE ALLNESS OF GOOD

JAMES K. WESTOVER

One of the prominent teachings of Christian Science is that God is good. This statement conveys a sense of complete, all-embracing harmony. Since the Scriptures imply the allness of God, it is clearly deduced that all is good. Many generations of mortals have questioned this, loudly and persistently proclaiming their belief in the presence and reality of God's opposite, devil or evil. Not always upon first acquaintance with Christian Science does the unreality of evil become apparent. Many have found it necessary to accept the declarations of our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, on this subject and then to prove their truth in actual practice before becoming fully convinced of the entireness of God and His creation.

Humanity has been prone to accept evil as real and to contend with it without first having analyzed its pretensions. One new student of Christian Science remarked to a more experienced Scientist that crime and corruption seemed to prevail in their community. For answer the latter quoted from Science and Health (p. 186): "Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth. It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent. Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil." The one to whom this enlightenment came has been humbly grateful, over a period of many years, for the further explanation which then followed. It was brought out that evil, in order to be something, would have to have an origin, a place or condition from which to come. It having been admitted that God, good, the only cause and creator, could never have generated evil or brought it into existence, it was seen that evil never came from anywhere. Never having come from anywhere, it never arrived; and since it never arrived, no one could actually experience evil or become subservient to it.

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