Editorial July 3, 1976 Issue

Doing the Right Thing

Geoffrey J. Barratt

Most of us want to do the right thing. Sometimes we try and feel we've failed. Other times we're not sure what the right thing is. There's a scientific and metaphysical approach: man is and does the right thing always because there's no gap or object between God and His ideal man—not so much as an atom's width of space, not a sliver. This would remain true notwithstanding even whole galaxies of evidence that should seem to prove the opposite.

Christian Science doesn't simply tell us we can be better but shows us how. Just asserting we've failed and regret it, insisting we can't do the right thing, will never get us out of the self-disappointment of poor performances. Reasoning from a spiritually scientific basis, we can claim, in the words of Christ Jesus, "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works."^{John 14:10;} God, always the source of our being, always one with us, and we with Him, does all that is done; and all is good. Allying ourselves with our spiritual identity disassociates us from any personality-based matter theology—from accepting that man is degenerate and mortal. Such negative theories have for the last hundred years been outmoded by the Science of being and its thousands of proofs.

"There is but one way of doing good, and that is to do it!" Mary Baker Eddy exclaims. "There is but one way of being good, and that is to be good!"^{Retrospection and Introspection, p. 86;} Her teaching is not directed to merely diminishing human failures. It's the Science of demonstrating our God-given present perfection.