Editorial June 18, 1966 Issue

Can Opposites Be Reconciled?

Helen Wood Bauman

Opposites are things in sharp contrast or in conflict. They contradict each other so that if one is true the other is untrue. And this is the situation with good and evil. Christ Jesus clearly taught that these opposites cannot be reconciled. He did not attribute evil to God, but he termed the devil, or evil, a liar. He said, "A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." Luke 6::43;

Here was a scientific statement that the Master constantly proved by destroying evil conditions, whether of mind, body, or nature, on the basis that God, good, does not create His opposite, evil. Yet since early Christian times men have persisted in trying to reconcile good and evil, Spirit and matter.

Jesus designated God as Spirit, and Christian Science recognizes Spirit as pure Mind in which there is no consciousness of matter. One doesn't have to think very deeply to realize the unity of matter and evil. All that is wrong and destructive stems from the belief that matter is substance. Envy, greed, fear, disease, drunkenness, crime—all come from this false belief. Deterioration, decrepitude, and death have the same origin. But matter is flimsy stuff. It has none of the enduring elements of Spirit, which are indestructible and which multiply with use.

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June 18, 1966
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