Article February 23, 1918 Issue

In an interesting paper entitled "The Relation of Faith...

S. T. Downs

Elkhart (Ind.) Truth

In an interesting paper entitled "The Relation of Faith and Prayer to Health and Healing," read before the Elkhart Ministerial Association, and printed in your paper at their request, a clergyman said much about faith cure and about cures that have been effected through mere faith in prayer, or mere faith in a drug, or mere faith in a religious ceremony. He attempted to characterize Christian Science healing as such faith cure, just as opponents of Christian Science have done ever since Mrs. Eddy discovered it. The fact is, however, that Mrs. Eddy set forth in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," a clear distinction between spiritual healing and faith cure, and one who makes a reasonable effort to understand this teaching will readily recognize this difference.

Christian Science healing is accomplished through an understanding of, not merely a blind belief in, God, divine Mind, and His laws. Mrs. Eddy makes this very helpful comparison of blind faith and spiritual understanding (Science and Health, p. 23): "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." When faith becomes spiritual understanding, and through this understanding the allness of God is scientifically demonstrated, healing is accomplished exactly as Jesus performed his works. The great Master showed the necessity for understanding in the much quoted, but ever helpful, statement, "If ye continue in my word ... ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

It is quite common for Christian Scientists to speak gratefully of physical healing, but this is usually accompanied by expressions of still greater gratitude for the spiritual regeneration that Christian Science brings. The Christian Scientist, when his faith advances to understanding, knows that physical healing is often but the first evidence of the healing of fear, hate, envy, or the like. As has been often stated, it would be utterly impossible to make a man better physically in Christian Science without making him better spiritually; and it is likewise true that it would be just as impossible to make him better spiritually without making him better physically.

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