MARY BAKER EDDY makes a profound and important contribution toward the overcoming of evil by her definition of "will" in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 597). Part of this definition is: "The motive-power of error; mortal belief; animal power. The might and wisdom of God." To believe that will is merely a disagreeable human trait which causes its possessor to impose his opinions upon others and to seek to control them is to limit one's ability to deal with error.

Will as "the motive-power of error" is a far more subtle and deeply rooted error than personal aggressiveness. For mortal will power motivates every atom of action in suppositional mortal mind. It is the prime moving factor in false consciousness. It is counterfeit creative power, which produces the mortal concept of man as well as his sins, his diseases, and his death. Mortal will power is the opposite of "the might and wisdom of God" and is consequently unreal. To prove that there is but one will—God's—is the object of Christian Science practice.

The author of a famous address, speaking of ill temper as a vice which even the virtuous are sometimes likely to display, describes temper as "the occasional bubble escaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath." The rottenness underneath is, of course, the undestroyed carnal mind. And so the various forms of personal aggressiveness, which one might call human willfulness, are mental bubbles, false impulses of thought, which betray the more iniquitous and fundamental mortal will power that underlies all of suppositional, material existence.

In her book "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy discusses Paul's statement that he took pleasure in infirmities and persecutions. She says (p. 201), "The Science of Paul's declaration resolves the element misnamed matter into its original sin, or human will; that will which would oppose bringing the qualities of Spirit into subjection to Spirit." Mortal will power produces the solid conviction that matter and evil exist. Matter is nothing more than a tenacious mental picture of the material senses.

Every mortal embodies false conviction, for every mortal is deeply convinced of matter. All disease, sin, limitation, even death, are solid conviction, and solid conviction sustains illusion. To give up "the motive-power of error" for "the might and wisdom of God" destroys false convictions and brings about healing. A God-controlled human consciousness then appears as one step out of the mortal sense of life.

Keeping personal willfulness under control requires self-discipline. It requires living with such complete trust in God's might and wisdom and with such assurance that each individual is under the Father's government that one can let other people's lives and minds alone. Such self-discipline calls for the giving up of perverse opinions concerning others, solid convictions of error that have no element of fact in them. Overcoming human will demands the abandonment of sensual appetites of every kind, as well as the dropping of all belief in evil and sickness. The willful are those who try to take the kingdom of heaven by force instead of meekly proving the supreme government of Deity.

If the impulses of personal will seem difficult to deal with, one should direct his efforts more precisely to realize the nothingness of mortal will power, the basic motivation of the carnal mind.

Perhaps no more fruitful study can be made than that of Jesus' statements regarding God's will. Plainly, the Master's mission was to prove that the Father's will is the governing power of the universe. He said (John 6:38), "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." The depth of Jesus' desire to fulfill his mission was evident in his anguished prayer in Gethsemane (Luke 22:42), "Not my will, but thine, be done." Interpreting this great prayer in Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy says (p. 33): "When the human element in him struggled with the divine, our great Teacher said: 'Not my will, but Thine, be done!' —that is, Let not the flesh, but the Spirit, be represented in me. This is the new understanding of spiritual Love. It gives all for Christ, or Truth."

Here we see the secret of Jesus' power. The real man, found in Christ, has no will of his own, but reflects the divine will. One who gives all for Christ separates his thought of himself from "the motive-power of error," which claims to produce a mortal sense of life. Only God can express motive power. Only divine Mind can manifest will. And man is Mind's expression.

We can rest in the assurance that God's will is done, now and forever. Our scientific task is to demonstrate the divine will as the only motive power of man. When we do this, we find ourselves in a state of unlabored obedience to divine law. We enjoy health and peace, sinlessness and joy, in proof of the great truth that the only will is "the might and wisdom of God."

Helen Wood Bauman