Editorial November 3, 1951 Issue

ON WHAT ARE WE RELYING?

Richard J. Davis

The prophet Jeremiah must have seen the futility of seeking health and healing by means of material remedies, for he says (46:11), "In vain shalt thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be cured." And in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy, the author and Discoverer of Christian Science, writes (pp. 142, 143): "Which was first, Mind or medicine? If Mind was first and self-existent, then Mind, not matter, must have been the first medicine. God being All-in-all, He made medicine; but that medicine was Mind. It could not have been matter, which departs from the nature and character of Mind, God. Truth is God's remedy for error of every kind, and Truth destroys only what is untrue. Hence the fact that, to-day, as yesterday, Christ casts out evils and heals the sick. It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, nor provide them for human use; else Jesus would have recommended and employed them in his healing."

In Christian Science, healing rests upon undeviating and unqualified reliance on God. No concessions can be made to other forms and methods of treating disease. Christian Science does not acknowledge or give power to matter or drugs as a factor in healing the sick. There is no point at which the power and law of God, Spirit, enters into a partnership or co-operation with material methods of healing. Christian Science healing is purely mental—spiritually mental. Mrs. Eddy termed her discovery a metaphysical system of healing, a system above and beyond the physical. Her system is based on a demonstrable understanding of God, the only cause and origin of being.

Mrs. Eddy perceived and proved that because God, Mind, is All-in-all, spiritual being necessarily constitutes all reality and that therefore the physical world in all of its aspects as presented to human consciousness has no basic reality, but appears only as an illusion of false, material belief. Christian Science treatment, therefore, is not concerned with matter as cause, substance, or law. It does not deal with matter as a reality. It does not treat matter. Science recognizes all disease and sin, not as truth, but as the expression and product of mortal belief—solely belief. Thus the modus operandi of Christian Science treatment is not that of mind over matter, but of Truth over error.

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