|
Essays on Discover the Power Within You
What About Evil?
[<- Go back to "How Am I Like Jesus Christ"]
[Essays on Discover the Power Within You] [Charles
Fillmore's Works]
[Unity on the Web Home Page]
To believe that evil exists as a force in the world is to believe that
in some small way God hates us. It is a rejection of faith in God and is
an assumption that universal law acts intermittently or erratically.
Suppose for a moment that God did create a devil to torment us. What
could be his motivation in doing so? The idea that he has done so to strengthen
us in our love of God is nonsensical and poorly thought out. It also directly
contradicts Jesus' teachings, both literally and symbolically.
Jesus points out that God is like a loving father, without the limitations
of an earthly one. "Which of you, if his son asks him for a fish, would
give him a serpent?"
If you honestly seek true understanding in a situation, will you settle
for egoistic rationalization? Of course not.
If your child needed to learn something, would you try to teach him
through fear, or love? Would you set yourself against him, set stumbling
blocks in front of him, dig a pit in his way? Of course not.
"If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them
that ask him?"
Nowhere in this image of God is there room for a Father who looses torment
on his child.
The concept of an active force of evil reminds me of the classical paradox,
can God create a stone so big he can't move it? Those who believe in a
devil have implicitly answered this question yes.
Evil has often been compared to darkness. In this formulation, evil
is an absence of good as darkness is an absence of light.
We can say light exists and darkness does not, because light is a measureable
energy, the presence of photons. Darkness is just a place where photons
have not yet penetrated.
Perhaps we would have a more complete understanding of evil if we saw
it this way, as incomplete. Evil is incomplete understanding, it is pausing
on the journey to the truth.
If you go out into outer space, there is light everywhere. Even the
side of a satellite that is in shadow, is illuminated faintly by the billions
of stars. Only that area that is completely enclosed by walls is truly
in darkness. The rest is only in shadow.
The universe itself is more than half full of light.
I believe that most of what we take as evil, is more like shadow than
true darkness. I believe that the love of God, which is the true light
of creation, is strong enough to penetrate into the depths of every situation.
If we give ourselves a moment to let our spiritual sight adjust to the
experience we are in, we will see the love of God and the gift of goodness
that the situation has for us.
Why would God give us stones instead of bread, serpents instead of fish?
He is too busy leading us into light, to ever lead us into darkness.
A stone represents mind substance hardened by the application of will
power, or in other words, something that you have already made a part of
your permanent understandings. There is no nourishment in it for your mind.
God is continually giving you new opportunities for learning, new challenges,
represented by bread.
If you hesitate in reaching for your new understanding, then you are
choosing the stone instead of the bread.
Some people have misconstrued the phrasing of the Lord's Prayer to indicate
the existence of an active force of evil. "Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil."
But this misunderstanding comes as a result of forgetting the true function
of prayer, one that Jesus certainly knows and affirms. Prayer is not meant
to reform the thoughts of God, but of man.
The Lord's Prayer is a spiritual snapshot of God, designed to change
our consciousness of spirit into a right relation to God. Suppose you add
one word to the statement, and turn it into a descriptive phrase. "You
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil".
In other words, you are saying, "God, I understand that by loving you,
I center my awareness on growth, rather than limitation, and commit myself
to unconditional love of my situation, and complete responsibility and
understanding of it."
You love God by doing his will. His will is expressed as spiritual or
universal law. So by choosing your thoughts to express according to spiritual
law, you are choosing the light of God, which is goodness, and the darkness,
the optical illusion of evil, evaporates in the fullness of light.
Does evil exist? It exists for you as long as you continue to pretend
it does. Fortunately no one has the strength to be this foolish forever.
[Go forward to What is Heaven and Hell ->]
[Essays on Discover the Power Within You] [Charles
Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
|