What Is God Up Against?

CAN anything successfully oppose God, good? Evil certainly seems to be a force in the world--a force in opposition to good. But if evil were real, with power to overthrow good, where would that leave God? Would He be up against a power that could defeat Him?

The Bible tells a different story. It shows us that God is good-- infinite good--and that there is no other power. ``All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made'' states the Bible in John's Gospel (1:3). God is all, and creates all; there exists nothing for Him to fight or contend with. Yet it certainly often seems that we have to struggle to overcome illness or sin. Reasoning, however, that begins with God, who is the source of all that is real, can reform and heal us.

Because God is the only creator, He naturally causes His creation to be like Him. God is absolutely good. His creation includes nothing that is subject to disease or injury. The spiritual man of God's creation--our true identity--is absolutely good, diseaseless, and perfect.

Reasoning this way is a form of prayer. It shows us that because God is all and is good He doesn't have to struggle with evil. And when we see that He really does have all power, we don't have to struggle either. If we are suffering and feel convinced that our problem is surely real, understanding what God is and that what He has created is good can free us from suffering. God made everything spiritual and good, so how can there be any real substance to disease or evil? That's the point--there can't be.

Once some people brought a man to Christ Jesus for healing who, the Bible says, was ``deaf, and had an impediment in his speech.'' Jesus took the man aside and said ``Be opened.'' Mark's Gospel tells us the results of Jesus' prayer for the man: ``And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain'' (see 7:32-35). Jesus prayed. Yet, if God created disease, no amount of prayer could change it. But God does not create disease, and understanding this truth healed the man. The same fact applies to you and me too. God hasn't created disease for anyone. He hasn't created illness, sin, hatred, or anything bad of any kind.

God is the only force, the only power, there is. ``The starting-point of divine Science,'' writes Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, ``is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind,--that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle'' (p. 275). When we start with the fact that ``God, Spirit, is All-in-all'' and see that ``there is no other might nor Mind,'' we can confidently expect healing.

Recently I was ill, and at first I felt that my prayers would have to beat down and expel the physical illness. After a time of struggling this way, I realized that I was praying as if the illness were a reality. But the truth is that God is All and that He is the only power. I continued to pray. And because I was now starting with the truth--that good, or God, is the only power that had been present all along--the symptoms disappeared. I was healed. No matter what we seem to be up against, freedom and victory come when we realize, even just a little, what God's allness means. God is unique--He is not one in a series of powerful beings, He is the only Being. God isn't up against anything at all. He is All.