Article March 13, 1978 Issue

The correct view of God heals

JOHN K. DANIELS

The description of God as infinite Mind, or Spirit, too pure to comprehend evil and matter, has always been upsetting to the conventional view. If God has no knowledge of matter or of the evil things that seem to happen to us, it might be asked, How can He be of any help to us? If He doesn't know matter, how can He even know that we, as human beings living in material bodies, exist? Isn't it more comforting and perhaps more logical to think of God as knowing us as persons struggling with matter and evil, or error? Isn't He more apt to help us if His omniscience and omnipotence can see and rearrange everything in our lives, including matter and error?

The answer to these questions is found not so much through human reasoning as in practical proof. "The question, What is Truth," writes Mrs. Eddy, "is answered by demonstration,—by healing both disease and sin."^{Science and Health, p. viii;} Working from the true concept of God, as revealed in Christian Science, a student of this Science can learn to heal consistently, after the pattern of Christ Jesus. As the student's spiritual understanding grows, he becomes more and more conscious of God, not as an intellectual abstraction but as a real, warm, loving presence—a presence manifested by the practical advancement of every facet of good in his human experience.

If God were like a human being—that is, cognizant of and expressing both good and evil—then any good we needed, such as a healing, would be dependent on the mood He was in at the moment. We would find ourselves pleading with Him mentally as with another human being, trying to appeal to His good nature, trying to convince Him that we're more often good than bad and that we deserve His compassion because He made us the way we are. And, depending on His opinion of us (maybe He wouldn't like us as well as others), He might send some good our way, or He might decide that what we really needed was a well-aimed thunderbolt! Or at some point He might become irritated with the entire human race and tune us all out.

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