Editorial January 19, 1924 Issue

Affirmation versus Denial

Albert F. Gilmore

MANKIND, as a whole, is little aware of the need for believing and declaring nothing but the truth. It has been little understood that since thought externalizes itself, to hold to fallacious beliefs and to proclaim error as truth insures evil results in the form of sin. sickness, and general unhappiness. The Christian Science practitioner is well aware of the tendency on the part of many seeking spiritual healing to accept as real the conditions from which they desire relief. Christian Scientists should seriously consider this important phase of Christian metaphysics,—the need for promptly denying every erroneous thought presenting itself to human consciousness, in order to escape its baneful results.

The teaching of Christian Science that causation is mental and spiritual—that divine Mind is the only cause—is so logical and practical that it is becoming accepted far and wide. Yet this acknowledgment, in many instances, is not followed by its application to experience,—the only way in which proof can be established, and freedom gained. The so-called mortal mind is all too prone to accept the false as real; and it denies spiritual causation. Since its own basis is material, and therefore erroneous, its qualities and states are likewise material and fallacious; hence, the conclusions of this human mind will never be sound until the divine Mind, through the healing touch of the Christ, shall instruct it out of its own sense of limitation and error.

Mrs. Eddy has made it very clear that one should never admit error into consciousness. Thinking only true thoughts, one would never become conscious of evil; and, on the contrary, thinking evil thoughts, one would never know the joy of spiritual well-being and true blessedness. Christian Scientists know that the belief in matter as reality underlies all trials and suffering; yet, manifestly, they do not always stand firm against that which they know in essence to be false and evil. Under the marginal heading, "Life independent of matter," Mrs. Eddy states in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 368), "Neither evil, disease, nor death can be spiritual, and the material belief in them disappears in the ratio of one's spiritual growth." And farther along in the same paragraph she states: "Admit the existence of matter, and you admit that mortality (and therefore disease) has a foundation in fact. Deny the existence of matter, and you can destroy the belief in material conditions."

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