If we see someone or some group doing evil, should we do something about it? Just asking the question can start a debate. What is evil? After all, actions that look evil to one person may look good to another. But even those who agree on what evil is may disagree deeply on how to resist it.

To clearly identify what is evil, we first need to know what is good. This means understanding God and His creation—including each of us in our true, spiritual being as the image and likeness of God, good. The Bible assures us that God, Spirit, created all, and created it very good (see Genesis 1). Evil, then, must be anything that is unlike God and His creation.

As we look around at our world, it can feel all too easy to spot the things that are not Godlike. Want, greed, selfishness, hatred, malice, war, disease, and death can at times seem to overwhelm the good that is also there to see. To effectively resist evil in whatever form it takes, we must begin with ourselves, with our own hearts and thoughts. Despite all apparent evidence to the contrary, we must be willing to accept that God’s allness and infinite goodness mean that evil has no place to exist and therefore no existence. And then we must resist anything that’s ungodlike in our own thought by striving to express only Godlike qualities—such as love, compassion, tenderness, mercy, forgiveness—at all times and under all circumstances.