There is a Why? of desperation: why has this happened to me? why am I frustrated? why doesn't opportunity ever knock at my door? And there is a Why? of intelligent curiosity; it sparks the child's endless questioning, the astronomer's nightlong researches, the explorer's impatience for the trail. Either way these questions and their correct answers provide the successive footholds and handholds by which mankind climbs out of ignorance and limitation.
The answer to a Why? requires an understanding of causation. So no wonder Mrs. Eddy emphasizes the need for rightly understanding causation. She writes, "Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress." Science and Health, p. 170; That's a strong statement. Her phrases "the one question to be considered" and "more than all others" are without reservation. Whoever is interested in promoting human progress, both into knowledge and out of frustration, needs to place spiritual causation at the top of the agenda.
In Christian Science, God is identified as infinite Spirit. Because He is infinite Spirit, God is also the one Spirit; since God, Spirit, is infinite, there can be no second or opposing spirit. This one infinite Spirit, God, is infinitely good; spiritual causation, then, is wholly good causation. Since God, Spirit, is also the one power, spiritual causation, good causation, is the only causation; therefore, there is no secondary causation, whether calling itself remote, predisposing, or exciting, able to produce or occasion evil.
