From the Editors August 27, 2012 Issue

No darkness at all

The Editors

A leading point that Christian Science sets forth for the world is the fact there is not a presence or force that exists besides God. All that genuinely is in existence is God and God’s action, or outcome. “Know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else,” says the Bible (Isaiah 45:6).

Darkness isn’t a substance or element in addition to light; it’s always simply the absence of light. In any room, there aren’t two switches on the wall—a light switch and also a “dark” switch. We can’t walk into a bright room with sunshine streaming through the windows and then switch on the “dark”!

Could it be said that evil, like darkness, has no tangible substance? Whether it appears as selfishness, hatred, illness, injustice, sin, or injury, it actually is a belief in God’s absence—a false mental impression of God’s nonexistence. The divine Truth and Love that is God is inextinguishable; uncontested. Truth illuminates human consciousness, effectively freeing us from a false belief in the darkness of evil. “Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose ‘light shall we see light;’ and this illumination is reflected spiritually by all who walk in the light and turn away from a false material sense,” explains the Sentinel’s founder, Mary Baker Eddy (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 510).