Editorial July 9, 1960 Issue

Ruling Out Negation

Helen Wood Bauman

Christian Science refutes the generally accepted belief that evil is actual, having power and reality and the ability to annihilate good. The premise which Science uses in making this refutation is that evil implies the absence of good; whereas good is God, the one creative Principle of the universe, is All, and is ever present. To one who is willing to accept this lucid reasoning, it is obvious that there cannot be two provable principles, two bases of being, or two opposite kinds of creation. There is but one reality, the positive and good; whereas evil is unreal, a negation.

Mary Baker Eddy gives us this definitive statement in her book "Unity of Good" (p. 49): "Evil is without Principle. Being destitute of Principle, it is devoid of Science. Hence it is undemonstrable, without proof. This gives me a clearer right to call evil a negation, than to affirm it to be something which God sees and knows, but which He straightway commands mortals to shun or relinquish, lest it destroy them."

Christ Jesus scientifically designated evil as negation when he described the devil, or evil, to his disputatious opponents in these words (John 8:44): "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."' A lie is the negation of a truth, but it is powerless to tarnish or to destroy what is true.

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