The Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy contain many exhortations to resist evil in its various guises and indicate the blessedness and joyous reward of obedience to such injunctions. For example, James said (4:7): "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Students of Christian Science are equally familiar with Mrs. Eddy's inspiring words in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 393): "Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man." "The strength of Spirit" is the marginal heading to the paragraph in which these words occur. Thus it is made plain that it is God, Spirit, and Spirit alone, which impels and empowers mankind's resistance to the devil, or evil.
Since Spirit is both omnipresent and omnipotent, those who turn to it in the hour of need cannot fail to find the desired help and freedom. Mere human resistance to evil unsupported by the divine Mind, or God, might prove abortive, but rebellion based on the fact of man's forever oneness, or unity, with the might and majesty of divine Principle, Love, is infallible.
Truth and Love, reflected in individual human consciousness, are alone capable of withstanding the assaults of the common enemy—the supposititious mortal or carnal mind. It is patent that to attempt to resist evil with evil cannot avail. Error can never be combated on its own level. It is only the spiritualized consciousness which successfully handles evil's aggressive suggestions.
