Editorial April 25, 1970 Issue

Miracle or Law?

Helen Wood Bauman

For centuries people have believed that the healings and other works performed by Christ Jesus were miracles, supernatural events brought about by God's intervention and His setting aside of natural laws. This belief has prolonged a misinterpretation of Jesus' mission and a failure to include healing and the demonstration of the power of Spirit, God, over matter as basic demands of Christianity.

Christian Science corrects this wrong interpretation and restores healing to Christian worship. It reveals the so-called miracles of Jesus as scientific proofs of the operation of divine law, the law of Christ, Truth, which is universally available and regenerative in its action. Mary Baker Eddy explains in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Miracles are impossible in Science, and here Science takes issue with popular religions. The scientific manifestation of power is from the divine nature and is not supernatural, since Science is an explication of nature."^{Science and Health, p. 83;}

Faith in the miraculous provides only a weak basis for healing, inasmuch as faith is an uncertain, human quality and usually rests upon person instead of divine Principle and law for power. A miracle makes no moral demand, whereas law demands subordination to God. The multitudes in Jesus' time had faith in him, and they thronged him to benefit by the healings they observed him achieve. But he understood the frailty of human faith, which can be quickly dissolved, and he didn't trust those who merely believed in him to support his mission. John records, "Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man."^{John 2:24, 25;}

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