Impotence of Evil

LEWIS REX MILLER

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS derive help and comfort from the prophet's words concerning God, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." In "Unity of Good" (p. 20) Mrs. Eddy assures us that "God never made evil," that "He knows it not," and that "we therefore need not fear it."

Helpful, also, is the corollary of these propositions, namely, that evil, error, does not know God, good. And since it does not know good, cannot recognize or comprehend it, any effectual attack of error upon Truth is unthinkable; for how can an imaginary force be directed against something of which it cannot even be cognizant?

Christian Scientists are taught that there can be no blending of good and evil, Truth and error. Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 281): "Spirit and matter no more commingle than light and darkness. When one appears, the other disappears." Spirit dwells in the eternal realm of reality; matter has its supposed existence only in mortal thought. Any conjunction of the two is impossible, for a right idea cannot include any element of falsehood; nor can a material thought reflect any quality of true spirituality.

It is encouraging to realize that what Paul calls "imaginations," which it is our work as Christian Scientists to cast down when they appear to assail us, are utterly devoid of intelligence, the only quality which could give them any power or substance. Claiming for ourselves the God-given qualities of true manhood and womanhood, we are as safe from these assaults as would be a strong and wisely defended fortress against an attack by ignorant and unorganized assailants who were not able even to discover the location of the stronghold.

So ignorant of good is evil that the latter vanishes when faced by the truth. This was apparent when Jesus healed the man who had "a spirit of an unclean devil." In the qualities of purity and strength which Jesus manifested, the unclean spirit recognized the impassable gulf that separated it from good, and cried aloud, "What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?" Having thus admitted its complete separation from the good that Jesus represented, evil was self-destroyed, and the man restored to sanity and health.

So it is with us when, by filling our consciousness with positive good, we render it not only impervious, but even unfindable, to the blind gropings of material sense. Error does not seek the light, but flees from it and disappears into what Mrs. Eddy calls on page 365 of Science and Health "its native nothingness."

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