YouTube: The Question of Evil
In her book, Lessons in Truth, Emilie Cady made this controversial statement: There is no evil. Over the years, many have asked me why I thought she would make such a statement. You can’t watch the news for ten minutes without seeing there is no shortage of evil. How could this woman of such profound insight be so naïve about what’s going on all around us?
She wasn’t naïve. She was approaching the problem of evil from the absolute point of view. Like most of us, Cady was exposed to the mainstream Christian belief in two powers: good and evil, God and Satan. For me, it often sounded like Satan was just as powerful as God. There is a strong negative drag on anyone who believes there is an evil force working against their every effort to live a good life. Cady was offering a way out of this trap.
By saying there is no evil, she is saying that a power of evil does not exist as a first cause. For a helpful analogy, we can turn to the law of mathematics. In mathematics, there is no law that forces error. Error is not a power but the result of our miscalculation. Because there is no power that is seeking to trip us up with wrong answers, we can erase the chalkboard and correct our mistake.
What we call evil at the human level has its origin in human consciousness. People are capable of heinous acts, but none can say the devil made me do it. There is always an underlying psychological imbalance involved.
Unity’s foundation statement affirms there is only one Presence and one power in the universe, God, the good, omnipotent. When we make this statement, we are essentially stepping up to our chalkboard, erasing our miscalculations, and starting over. Regardless of what has transpired, we envision the best and highest outcome for ourselves and all involved. We release all feeling that some negative power is working against our highest good. We affirm that one Presence and one power is at work smoothing out the rough places, bringing light where there seemed to be darkness, and bringing peace where there once was chaos.
J Douglas Bottorff 