I was waiting at an airport gate and, along with others, began watching a televised football playoff game. The viewers had some strong feelings about the teams that were playing, and it wasn’t long before some began yelling at the TV: “Drop it!” “Look out!” “Stop him!” “Oh, come on!”

As loud as everyone became, their intense thoughts and shouts didn’t have the slightest effect on the game. Recognizing this is a helpful stepping stone to thinking about mental power—about the fact that there is a distinct difference between the power of God, the one, infinite, divine Mind, and what Christian Science terms mental malpractice, or trying to influence others through human willpower. 

If it were a real force, mental malpractice could be used for harm. But while it’s unnerving to contemplate the possibility of human thought as a destructive power, we don’t need to accept that it is, because that would go right in the face of divine Mind’s all-presence and all-power. Could God, good, possibly share authority with some additional force of any kind?

God is infinite and supreme, and therefore shares power with no one, no thought, and no thing.

Lightning-like blasts of evil thought can be amusing in a science fiction film, as the villain Darth Vader demonstrates in the Star Wars movies. Yet such evil manipulations are not something that Christ Jesus ever acknowledged or accepted as anything to be feared. Jesus understood the nature of reality better than anyone else ever has. If there were such a real evil presence or influence, Jesus certainly would have told us. He would have told us, in contradiction of the First Commandment, that there are other gods—active evil influences—and that we ought to fear them.

Instead, with supreme confidence Jesus said, “We know what we worship” (John 4:22). Today’s followers of Jesus can declare that with certainty, too. We “know that the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him,” as the Bible says (Deuteronomy 4:35). 

Spiritual Truth is impervious, and its omnipotence isn’t eroded by misconceptions about it. The fact remains, as Christian Science teaches, that Truth, God, is infinite and supreme, and therefore shares power with no one, no thought, and no thing. Gratefully, all the superstition in the world regarding willpower as a force for good or evil can’t change this truth of Christian Science, which is the law of God.

People’s faith in harmful thought-power is always an unjustified belief in a force or presence where there actually isn’t one. It’s simply an error of thought, and we need to recognize that and refuse to go along with such a misperception. Isn’t it interesting how subtly and hypnotically errors of thought can seem to get layered over someone’s view of genuine authority and power?

Biographer Irving C. Tomlinson relates that Mary Baker Eddy once wrote, “Error comes to you for life, and you give it all the life it has” (Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy, Amplified Edition, p. 98). One good way to refuse life to error—to any baseless claim—is to allow our allegiance to God to evolve into a heartfelt love for God, pure and constant, and to let this love grow so strong that it determines our entire outlook. Even if others, including people we deeply respect, act as though there is some evil presence in addition to God, we know that, in fact, evil has no ability to reach out and cause harm, because it is totally invalid and has no existence.

Yielding in prayer to God’s omnipotence exterminates lies.

It’s a joy to be clear regarding the truth that God’s goodness stands alone and unchallenged—that the erroneous suggestion that there are evil thought-forces is not to be feared but exposed and handled as a lie. It’s always only a false belief, a superstition, that makes such a thing seem real. Yielding in prayer to God’s omnipotence exterminates these lies.

God never sentences His loved offspring to be on the receiving end of any evil, reactive influence. God is good alone; God doesn’t send, use, or allow evil. In every situation that confronted him, Jesus stood up to the suggestion that there could be any power other than God. No wonder Mrs. Eddy instructs readers of her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures in this way: “Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake” (p. 442). 

Beliefs in malicious mental power evaporate the moment we behold in prayer that there is just God, not God plus wickedness. There is just God, not God plus egotistical willpower. There is just God, not God plus fear. There is just God, not God plus ill will. Always, there is just God, good, not God plus evil. All is God, and He includes each of us as His loved manifestation.

“We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God,” states Science and Health (p. 497). Any model admitting harmful thought-power is to be dropped permanently and forgotten. The singular reality of God and God’s goodness is genuine Christian theology.