Article February 14, 1931 Issue

Why Spiritual Understanding Heals

HARRY S. SOUTHAM

On page 390 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy writes, "It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony." Since a false concept of God causes the discord which seems to victimize mankind, clearly "the right understanding of Him" will restore harmony, because one cannot be deceived into accepting a lie as true and suffering the consequences, if he is knowing the truth concerning which the lie is predicated. In other words, the truth about God as divine Principle destroys the lie that God, infinite good, creates or permits evil; just as one cannot believe that two and two makes five if one knows that it makes four. A child cannot be deceived into believing that a ghost is real and something to be afraid of if he has learned, and therefore knows, that it is an illusion, nothing.

If mankind knew clearly and continuously that sin and sickness are not true or real because God, divine Principle, did not make them, the beliefs of sin and sickness would lose their seeming power to harm or deceive. Did not Christ Jesus say, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free"? This is the law of God, and it is therefore inviolable and unfailing. Moreover, it appeals to reason that, God being infinite good, all one needs to be freed from, and all one can be freed from, is some false belief or lie about God and His creation—about reality. And the only "place" in which this freedom can be achieved is in human thinking, because that is the only "place" wherein a lie about God or reality can seem to be true.

But why, it may be asked, does "ignorance of God, the divine Principle," cause apparent discord? Primarily, because one's experience is the expression or externalization of one's thinking. Each individual manifests in his human experience just what he is conscious of, accepts as real, whether it be the truth and its resultant harmony, or error and discord. "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he," said the wise man long before the Christian era, thus unfolding the fact that individual experience is individual thinking imaged forth. Paul indicated the same thing when he said in his letter to the Romans, "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" and also when he advised the Philippians and followers of the lowly Nazarene, in every age, to strive to become conscious of the truth of being, in the words, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."

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