All You Need Is Love

The first of five basic principles of Unity states, “God is the source and creator of all. There is no other enduring power. God is good and present everywhere.” One of the often quoted statements of many within the movement is, “It’s all good.” This reflects the above principle. If God is good and present everywhere, then the likely deduction is to name everything good.  However, that can certainly be a challenge if we ever turn on the evening news.  Murder, war, mass destruction.  Good?  These certainty don’t seem to fit my personal concept of the word “good.”     

After this past week’s discussions in Theology class, it is apparent that the concept of sin is one of religion’s main quandaries. Each has it’s own take on the nature of human kind, the nature of sin, the reason for apparent evil and injustice in the world. It would seem that the definition of the nature of sin is related to one’s beliefs about the nature of God.  (Here we go back to the lenses thing again.)  I’d like to present one possible perspective.  

How can that which is not good exist within All Good?  Eric Butterworth, a Unity minister and prolific Unity writer wrote, “Sin is when a man, a spiritual being and creative expression of Divine Mind, is unaware of his divinity and acts at the level of his humanity” (Discover the Power Within You. p. 147) An often quoted saying sums this seeming dichotomy up, “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  In this definition of sin, sin or error, is at the level of humanity alone. Sin and suffering are only human experiences. They are not Divine experiences. In this context, God “All Good” is not these things, nor does God know of them, just as light can never know darkness. Where ever the light goes the darkness disappears.  

Christians may perceive of the teachings of Jesus Christ as a light for humanity.  Jesus taught agape, reconciling, forgiving love. Perhaps the Divine Light expressed through Jesus is one way to see through the darkness otherwise known as sin.  Darkness has no reality once we recognize the Divine Light within ourselves.  Perhaps the Beatles said it best, “All you need is love.”