Editorial March 14, 1953 Issue

NO OPPOSING POWER OR PERSONS

Richard J. Davis

Because of His infinite allness, God has no opposite to Himself. This statement is a demonstrable metaphysical fact underlying the entire teaching of Christian Science. Its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, throughout her writings declares many times and in many ways that God, being one and all-inclusive, could not be confronted with an opposing power. On page 278 of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she writes: "Spirit is the only substance and consciousness recognized by divine Science. The material senses oppose this, but there are no material senses, for matter has no mind. In Spirit there is no matter, even as in Truth there is no error, and in good no evil. It is a false supposition, the notion that there is real substance-matter, the opposite of Spirit. Spirit, God, is infinite, all. Spirit can have no opposite."

The Scriptures also declare and emphasize the unopposed allness of the one I AM in Isaiah (42:8; 43:10–15): "I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images." "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour.... I am the Lord, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King."

This question of a supposititious evil power Christian Science alone can answer, and the answer is revealed to each one of us through our understanding of the Christ— for Christ, Truth, is the light bringing deliverance from the hypnotic belief in a power opposed to God. The claim of an opposite appears only in one's faulty belief that there is something besides God, something other than one presence, one power. This false belief, then, is all that needs to be recognized and rejected.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

MESSAGE TO A SERVICEMAN