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 and how can we resist it?
To clearly identify evil, we first need to know 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. 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.
Working to express His qualities helps to develop our spiritual sense, which the discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, defines as “a conscious, constant capacity to understand God” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 209). As our spiritual sense grows, so does our capacity to perceive the good that God created, good that is always present and available. And when we can perceive the good, we can accurately recognize and resist the evil.
Jesus tells us, “Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). And the book of James instructs, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (4:7). These commands are not contradictory. When we read each statement in context, we see that the Bible is both telling us where to aim our resistance and assuring us of its effectiveness. Since God and His children are good, there is no evil man, woman, or group to oppose. The right target is the lie that there can be an evil individual or group.
Mrs. Eddy defines the word “devil,” in part, as “evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor mind; the opposite of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness, and death” (Science and Health, p. 584). The devil – evil – is never personal. It’s a lie presenting itself as a bad or evil person or group. So we always target the lie, not the individual or individuals. And we target the lie by demanding of ourselves that we see what’s really there – the real man, created by God – right where evil or wrong claims to be present.
Seeing this real man is resisting evil in the most effective way – by denying it presence, identity, substance, and power in our thought, and therefore our experience. This demands that we lay aside human opinions and strategizing and turn wholeheartedly to God, divine Love. When we’re willing to yield to God, we feel the Holy Ghost, or Comforter, unfolding and enlightening that spiritual sense we’re striving to develop.
As promised in the book of James, the devil, evil – that is, the lie that there is an evil power confronting us – does flee when we discipline ourselves to do this.
A Christian Scientist found herself in the middle of a political demonstration. Though she belonged to neither the side protesting nor the side countering the protest, one side identified her as an enemy. A rock brushed her clothing, and it looked as though others were about to throw rocks at her, too. She began to pray quietly to herself, affirming that there is no division between peoples – between God’s offspring. Holding to the truth that there is one people – God’s man only – she could see that Love, not hate, was the only power.
As she prayed to feel God’s presence and power protecting her and everybody there, someone from the side throwing the stones took her to safety (see testimony by Martha Roadstrum Moffett, Christian Science Sentinel, December 18, 2000).
Identifying evil as a lie and seeing God’s creation as the only reality is the most effective way of not only resisting evil but destroying it. Let’s do this together. We’ll bless not only ourselves but the world!
Adapted from an editorial published in the Nov. 17, 2025, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
