Editorial January 29, 1944 Issue

Does Our Faith Waver?

John Randall Dunn

Often quoted is the verse from the epistle to the Hebrews which reads: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The word translated "evidence" in the King James Version also means, in the Greek, "conviction." So faith really embodies the conviction of unseen things or facts. What a message for the truth-seeker, who, time and again, echoes the plaint of the man who said to Jesus, "Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbelief"! Breathes there a mortal who, in his innermost yearnings, does not wish to believe in a power, in a spiritual law, to which one may turn for relief, redemption, or healing? With what joy, therefore, may hopeful men and women find this great and secure standing-ground, revealed by Christian Science, in a conviction of unseen facts. Do you not like that word conviction in connection with faith? When the student of Christian Science becomes convinced of the unseen spiritual facts of being, he may see how the prayer of faith can save the sick. "Until belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual understanding." writes our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, "human thought has little relation to the actual or divine" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 297).

A little child returns from school, and is met by a smiling mother. "And what did my boy learn today?" she inquires. Promptly and with pardonable pride he replies, "One and one are two!" Asks the mother, "How do you know that to be true?" Without a moment's hesitation comes the rejoinder. "The teacher said so!" There is no doubt about it. His confidence in the teacher's flat is without a flaw. But one day the little lad is playing with some building blocks. As he places one block upon another, it dawns upon his budding reason that one block and another block are two blocks. At that moment something wonderful happens to that child. A ray of understanding, a glimpse of mathematical law, has come to him; and at that moment blind faith in the teacher begins to disappear. Belief has been merged into faith, and faith has touched the hem of conviction, of understanding. Thereafter, the child approaches his problems in arithmetic with a new confidence, and a certitude founded on some measure of demonstration.

So it is with the larger children, those who believe themselves no longer young. When first they approach the stupendous truth of Christian Science and hear its promises of Christian healing, they may say frankly that they have no faith; and how can one be healed without faith? Right here do we find a proof that Christian Science is not what is commonly called a "faith cure." Time and again are people healed when their only faith may be said to be that born of a forlorn hope that Christian Science may help them. The healing is brought about through the understanding of the Scientist. Therefore may Christian Science be known as an understanding cure, and not a faith cure. Christ Jesus said to some he had healed, "Thy faith hath saved thee;" but it is worthy of note that their faith had not saved them until they came in touch with the Master's sublime spiritual understanding. Today, again and again, quick, unquestioned healings take place when an open, honest, expectant thought is brought into contact with a loving, God-inspired Christian Scientist.

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