Article June 15, 1974 Issue

Divine Healing

EDGAR ISAAC NEWGASS

Christian Science may make its initial appeal to the ordinary man largely as a system of mental healing—little different from systems of positive thinking. Mrs. Eddy, who discovered and developed this Science, did indeed recognize the well-known fact that good qualities such as integrity and honesty, happiness and gratitude, goodwill and charity (in thought and deed), act healthfully on the body, while opposite propensities such as resentment and hate, anxiety and impatience, the exercise of rigid human will and so on, can appear to poison or paralyze its normal functions. Did not Christ Jesus declare, "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts ...: these are the things which defile a man"?^{ Matt. 15:19, 20;} And Paul complemented this with, "Whatsoever things are true ... honest ... just ... pure ... lovely ... of good report ... think on these things."^{ Phil. 4:8;}

The foregoing may seem to suggest a purely mental system that leaves spiritual values out of the picture. But both the Bible and Christian Science show all good qualities and useful gifts as coming to man from God, who creates and maintains man indestructibly intact as His (God's) reflection, unceasingly active in His service. God is forever blessing His whole creation and holding it in perpetual harmony. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, "Spirit duly feeds and clothes every object, as it appears in the line of spiritual creation."^{ Science and Health, p. 507;} Through the understanding of spiritual law, however, human experience is benefited.

What, then, of the opposite element—evil, which seems to share human consciousness with good? According to Christian Science, evil originates only in the unreal suggestion that man is not after all created spiritual, good, and whole but is material, without Godlikeness. Once accepted, this false view commits one to a feverish effort to make good this apparent lack in ways leading him deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of false happiness, misery, and disaster. How wisely the Preacher writes, "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions"!^{ Eccl. 7:29;}

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