Article September 2, 1916 Issue

The Divine Fiat

KENNETH B. ELLIMAN

In the Latin Vulgate, the version of the Bible translated by Jerome in the fourth century and regarded as the authorized version for many centuries, part of Genesis i. 3 is rendered "Fiat lux," "Let there be light." From this expression arose our English word fiat, meaning a command by virtue of which something is created or done without any further effort.

Christian Scientists find that by the affirmation of truth and the denial of error much can be accomplished in the control and modification of their mental conditions and even of outward circumstances. On account of this discovery, sooner or later there is liable to present itself to their thought the suggestion that power inheres in the mere declaration or verbal fiat. Mrs. Eddy settles this question when she says (Science and Health, p. 451), "Students of Christian Science, who start with its letter and think to succeed without the spirit, will either make shipwreck of their faith or be turned sadly awry."

Some Christian Scientists have been taunted by skeptics who declare that they say a thing is so in order to "make it so." This corresponds possibly to one phase of the temptation pictured in the account of Satan's suggestion to Jesus, "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." And it is undoubtedly the error that underlies those counterfeit systems of metaphysics which attempt to cure disease by the exercise of the human will. It is the claim that the forcible declaration of anything wanted can bring it to pass.

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