Article September 25, 1926 Issue

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.

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