THE understanding that God, good, is All, that He created man in His own likeness, that He gave him dominion over all the earth and governs him continually, makes it possible for each one to prove that evil's claim to dominate is without divine authority. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 569), "Every mortal at some period, here or hereafter, must grapple with and overcome the mortal belief in a power opposed to God." It is encouraging to note that one is not obliged to grapple with and overcome a power opposed to God, but only one's belief in it.
Regardless of how much importance or might one may in his belief bestow upon evil, it never becomes real or attains any power or significance. Evil remains simply an illusion of false, material sense. Only that which has its source in God, perfect Mind, and is completely beneficial to man has law, power, and reality.
We need to be watchful that we do not personalize evil, that we do not resent or fear persons or organizations which appear to us to have wicked motives. For us to do so would be to attribute identity and causation to evil and would tend to make us susceptible to its attempted aggressions.
In reality, evil has no tools and no victims, for all men are, in their true, spiritual identity, perfect ideas of God, incapable of harming or being harmed. Evil has no legitimate dwelling place, because God, good, filling all space, precludes the presence of anything harmful or degrading.
In the book of Job (1:7), Satan, or evil, is represented as "going to and fro in the earth," apparently inspecting and testing humanity. Evil appeared to harm Job for a time because he gave place to fear, resentment, and self-pity when aggressive suggestions of disease and disaster presented themselves to him. When, through many struggles, Job came to acknowledge the supremacy of God, good, and attained the qualities of humility and unselfishness, he was delivered from all his troubles. And the Bible states that he was then even better off than he had been before his seeming trials.
In one's own experience it is requisite that one meet the suggestions of disease and other discords promptly and courageously, realizing that God, divine Principle, Love, alone has power and that He governs one's entire being. Disbelief in the reality of error hastens its destruction. To indulge resentment or self-pity or to question why one is forced to contend with a problem does not forward one's healing, but delays and impedes it.
In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy gives these ringing commands (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. Be firm in your understanding that the divine Mind governs, and that in Science man reflects God's government."
That error must be overcome through understanding the presence and power of God was recognized by a little girl who attends the Christian Science Sunday School. In correcting an error the child had manifested, her mother admonished, "You must put error behind you."
"Well, then," the little girl replied, "I must know that God is there too so that He can destroy the error."
One's work of demonstrating that under God's government one is subject only to good, health, and harmony can be mainly affirmative. The denying of error, when not accompanied by positive affirmations of truth, is apt to give discord more prominence in one's thinking and make one's work of overcoming seem laborious and unrewarding.
One has to face a claim of evil with a clear realization of its nothingness, even as Christ Jesus faced it when he was tempted by Satan, or evil, in the wilderness. He countered Satan's subtle arguments by repeating truths from the Scriptures. Then, as evil persisted in its tempting suggestions, the Master routed it with the stern command (Matt. 4:10), "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Then, we are told, angels, God's thoughts, "came and ministered unto him."
When one has taken a firm stand against some form of error, his next step is to entertain angels, or inspiring thoughts, based on the allness of God, good, and the unchangeable perfection of His spiritual creation. One should persist in his affirmation of the truths of perfect, spiritual being until error is completely excluded from his consciousness.
One evening, when a feeling of discomfort did not yield to her application of Christian Science, the writer vehemently declared that evil was a lie, false and baseless, without life or mind, and that it had no dominion over her. She felt harmonious and free when she retired, but she awoke in the early morning with a sense of illness and depression. She then became aware that she had not completed her work; after denouncing evil she had neglected to fill her thought with spiritual, affirmative truths. She picked up a copy of Science and Health and dwelt on statements of Truth emphasizing God's omnipotence and the ever-present perfection of man's being as God's reflection. Very soon the error disappeared, and harmony was restored.
In order to bring oneself and one's affairs under God's omnipresent government of good and thereby enjoy health, freedom, and peace of mind, one must purify thought through the constant endeavor to put the teachings of Christian Science into practice in one's daily living. Progress in spiritual understanding uncovers the errors lurking in one's consciousness and leads one to overcome them by allowing Life, Truth, and Love to govern his thinking.
Our Leader says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (pp. 204, 205): "Through the accession of spirituality, God, the divine Principle of Christian Science, literally governs the aims, ambition, and acts of the Scientist. The divine ruling gives prudence and energy; it banishes forever all envy, rivalry, evil thinking, evil speaking and acting; and mortal mind, thus purged, obtains peace and power outside of itself."
