Article November 15, 1924 Issue

Denial, in Christian Science

MARIAN JANET TURNER

In Christian Science we are admonished always to deny the existence of sin, disease, and death. On page 242 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy we find this passage: "Denial of the claims of matter is a great step towards the joys of Spirit, towards human freedom and the final triumph over the body." Before we can intelligently deny the claims of matter, we must, however, in a degree at least, understand the allness of God,—Spirit, Mind. To illustrate: it is only when we know that two and two are four that we can deny they are five. The truth that two and two are four becomes, then, the denial of the erroneous belief that they make five.

The Scriptures say, "The Lord he is God: ... there is none else;" and it is from this spiritual standpoint that we can deny the reality of the claims of all evil, including sin, disease, and death. How often do we hear an account in detail of some accident, the description ending with the words, "I denied it all, of course." Yes, it may have been a denial by the lips, but the true denial must come from the understanding. May not the fact of our relating what we have witnessed through physical sense show that there has been, not a scientific denial, but an acceptance of sense-testimony? When we have, with the truth of being, denied what the so-called material senses present to us, the trouble, so far as we are concerned, has ceased to be, and we are doing much to help the one in difficulty.

A dictionary gives the meaning of the word "deny" as "to declare untrue or nonexistent." Is it not anomalous for us to say we have denied something, and then to talk about it as if it existed as actual fact or reality? Our Leader says in Science and Health (pp. 153, 154), "Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherish error in any form, and certainly we should not be error's advocate." Let us, then, strive to live according to this rule, keeping ever before us the spiritual fact of God's allness. If we see any one laboring under the claims of evil in any guise, we should keep our consciousness so clear of the mesmeric influence of material sense testimony that we shall be free from the temptation to accept it, and shall truly and honestly use the denial as Jesus intended us to do, and in the way Mrs. Eddy has shown us. The more conscious we become of the allness of good, the more effective is the word of denial; for that very consciousness is in itself a denial of the claims of evil, since it is a reflection of the divine.

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