Editorial March 25, 1916 Issue

From Belief to Understanding

Annie M. Knott

Those who are becoming interested in Christian Science find it important to gain a correct sense of the words belief, faith, and understanding, and this can be readily done by a careful study of Mrs. Eddy's teachings as found in Science and Health and her other writings. In this study one naturally turns to the Bible, where the same words appear, and when the spiritual sense is gained we shall find that Mrs. Eddy's statements along these lines are in entire accord with those of the Scripture. It is, however, very important to gain the true sense of these words, or we miss the help which is so much needed, for the wise man assures us that "understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it."

It may be observed that most people are more familiar with the words faith and belief than they are with understanding, and they are also disposed to regard faith and belief as practically the same. This question is finely explained by Mrs. Eddy on page 23 of Science and Health, beginning with this statement: "Faith, if it be mere belief, is as a pendulum swinging between nothing and something, having no fixity. Faith, advanced to spiritual understanding, is the evidence gained from Spirit, which rebukes sin of every kind and establishes the claims of God." In the two following paragraphs the distinction is even more clearly drawn. A careful study of the New Testament reveals the fact that it was faith of this sort which Christ Jesus demanded and which his followers endorsed and strove to express. We may therefore rejoice in having through Christian Science the understanding which links us to vital, immovable faith in God and His law, and which is best manifested in the healing works of our Master, for without these, Christian experience is apt to be "dead," as the apostle James put it.

The word belief is very generally used in Christian Science to express material concepts of every kind and their varied manifestations. A belief in good is of course better than a belief in evil, but until the divine Principle of good is understood and obeyed, belief is apt to be moved, like a weather-vane, by popular opinion. A belief in health changes quickly to a belief of sickness, but sad to say the latter seldom changes quickly to a sense of health unless the light of Truth dispels the darkness. Isaiah says that when this light comes, then shall health "spring forth speedily;" and this is no mere change of belief, but the advance to spiritual understanding of which our Leader speaks.

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