Editorial December 16, 1950 Issue

BELIEF OR UNDERSTANDING

Robert Ellis Key

Man understands Truth; he does not merely believe in it. A mortal may believe in Truth, but he does not understand it. This is the difference between a mortal and an immortal. One believes, but the other understands. Through Christian Science we begin to see that we are not mortals becoming immortals, but that immortality is the present status of being for man. The student of Christian Science must watch that he accepts Christian Science through the understanding and not through a belief. If he is accepting Christian Science through belief, he may lose it, but through understanding he makes it his own permanently.

Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" writes (p. 487), "The believer and belief are one and are mortal." A glimmer of spiritual understanding will dissolve a legion of material beliefs. Even in the realm of mathematics this is so. When the English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton discovered that our universe is an ordered universe and proved it by mathematics to be so, he put to flight a host of theories, many of which were without foundation in truth. Learned men of his time held their own opinions concerning the structure of the universe, and although some theories were given more credence than others, owing to the reputation of the philosopher who expounded them, they were for the most part fallacious, because they were not capable of proof by mathematical calculations.

The illustration given above is taken to show the distinction between belief and understanding, between theory and proof. The science of numbers is not subject to change. Two added to two produced four a million years ago and will do the same a million years hence. Why is this? Because mathematics functions in the realm of exact knowledge, not in the realm of belief. Likewise, the individual who exactly knows, or understands, spiritual existence cannot die or change any more than the science of mathematics can to human sense change or be extinguished. Understanding, therefore, ensures man's immortality. No wonder the wise man wrote (Prov. 4:7), "With all thy getting get understanding."

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