Testimony of Healing February 6, 1978 Issue

Through the earnest study of Christian Science we can learn...

Joseph M. Bishop

Through the earnest study of Christian Science we can learn how to overcome material sense and prove the nothingness of physical and mental ailments. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy often uses the expression "material sense," and she shows how spiritual sense bears witness to that which is real and material sense to that which is unreal.

When we gain some understanding of Christian Science, we awake to the fact that evil is only a mistaken sense of things; in other words, it does not exist except as a false belief. Man is an idea of God, good, and cannot be separated from Him. Paul says (Acts 17:28), "In him we live, and move, and have our being." Material sense, then, is seen to be unreliable, false. Man is in truth wholly spiritual and perfect in God's likeness.

Mrs. Eddy puts the question in Science and Health (p. 484), "Is materiality the concomitant of spirituality, and is material sense a necessary preliminary to the understanding and expression of Spirit?" And her answer, in part, is (p. 485), "If error is necessary to define or to reveal Truth, the answer is yes; but not otherwise."