Affirmation of Truth and Denial of Error

ALBERT M. CHENEY

THE Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 149), "We need to understand the affirmations of divine Science, dismiss superstition, and demonstrate truth according to Christ." And on page 242she states, "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."

A Christian Science treatment generally includes a declaration and a realization of the truth, and a denial and a complete dismissal of all error claiming to be present. True Christian Science treatment, thus, is not a parrotlike repetition of certain words or phrases. If such were the case, one might have a phonograph record made of a well-worded prayer, listen to it at regular intervals, and then say he had been prayed for or had been given a treatment! Thanks to the wisdom of our Leader, the use of formulas in healing the sick or in teaching Christian Science is forbidden. (See Church Manual, Article VIII, Section 9.)

In talking with his disciples about the great subject of prayer, Christ Jesus said, "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." And in the Gospel according to Mark, he is recorded as having said, "Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." In Christian Science treatment the present perfection and wholeness of man as the son of God is declared or affirmed, because the perfection, wholeness, completeness of man is an eternal fact, not because the practitioner hopes or wishes it to become a fact. And just so is it with the denial of any error or belief. The denial is made because the belief of evil, whether it be sin, sickness, sorrow, or selfishness, is untrue and therefore unreal all the time, and not because of the hope that after being denied it will become unreal.

A teacher would not tell a pupil who desired to know the truth about the multiplication table, merely to affirm vehemently and continuously that five times five are twenty-five, and that by so doing a certain result in accounting would be attained. Error is denied because it is untrue, unreal. Truth is affirmed because it is always true. Whatever in all time to come may be found untrue is untrue now; whatever in all time to come may be found true is true this very instant.

Scientific treatment is not like, or in any way allied to, mental suggestion, hypnotism, mesmerism, or spiritualism. If our treatment is to be an effectual one, it must conform to the requirements of Christ Jesus. When we pray we must "believe" in the eternal presence of infinite good. The word "believe," as used in the Scriptures, also indicates understand or know; and thus our Master used it when he uttered that remarkable prayer which is recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." From the above statement it may be seen that Jesus' affirmation of truth was made as a result of his first knowing the truth. Likewise, his positive understanding of the allness of good enabled him to detect instantly and to deny the belief of error, whenever and wherever it claimed to exist.

In our efforts to demonstrate the truth of being, as taught in Christian Science, an acknowledgment of the fact that man is perfect because he is created by the perfect God, who is the only creator, is entirely in order. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, tells us in "Unity of Good" (p. 7), in commenting on certain remarkable healing works, "Certain self-proved propositions pour into my waiting thought in connection with these experiences; and here is one such conviction: that an acknowledgment of the perfection of the infinite Unseen confers a power nothing else can."

A gentleman once said to the writer, "It seems to me that I am uttering a falsehood when I deny that I am sick; whereas I look sick and I feel sick." He was requested to look out of the window upon a broad expanse of water; and was then asked if he saw a flat earth. The earth seemed flat; but the truth about the earth is that it is spherical, and we can have no hesitancy in denying the testimony of false material sense, and affirming the truth, which is a direct contradiction of the false testimony. So when the Christian Scientist is confronted with a suggestion of evil, in the form either of sickness or of sin, he can at once make use of his God-given spiritual understanding in a scientific affirmation of the truth of being and a positive denial of the evil belief. Then, in the proportion that he actually realizes the truth whereof he speaks and thinks, he will recognize his freedom from evil belief.

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