Article April 17, 1978 Issue

Don't identify evil

LAURA C. BELL

If you were to become covered with dust, you wouldn't claim it as "my dust." You would simply remove it, knowing it did not belong to you. Neither would you ponder why you had such an experience or think about how difficult it was to remove the dust. You would just dismiss the matter.

When we are confronted with an inharmonious situation, don't we frequently identify it as ours—our sickness, our suffering, our problem? We might also casually wonder what caused it, why we should be burdened by it, and what we should do about it. By claiming the trouble as belonging to us, we are giving it identity and reality. Mrs. Eddy says, "It is mental quackery to make disease a reality—to hold it as something seen and felt—and then to attempt its cure through Mind."^{Science and Health, p. 395;}

Man, made in the image of God, is spiritual and reflects the one divine Mind. Jesus said, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do."^{John 5:19;} If man is governed by God, good, and knows only what comes from God, where, then, does evil come from? The answer is that it comes from nowhere. It is merely a false, aggressive suggestion—an impersonal suggestion that there is a mind and a power apart from God. When such a suggestion came to Christ Jesus he rejected it with the strong rebuke, "Get thee behind me, Satan."^{Luke 4:8;} He did not wonder about the cause or source of the suggestion, nor did he claim it as the action of his own thought. He instantly dismissed it, knowing that since it was not from God, it was no part of his identity.