The discovery of Christian Science over a hundred years ago opened up fresh and compelling views of reality. It turned upside down many common assumptions. One such assumption was that "cause" could be found in matter.

Divine Science exposes matter as unintelligent, powerless. The human mind causes the effects that matter is supposed to produce; here is a concept with enormous implications. In the area of health, for instance, material mentality, not matter, is uncovered as the fundamental cause of all disease.

That's not quite as astounding a theory now as a century ago when Christian Science was widely ridiculed for holding it. Today it wouldn't be unusual for a medical practitioner to see a very direct cause-effect relationship between the patient's state of thought and the disease. Is there really a significant difference, then, between the point Christian Science pioneered and similar theories now held in, let's say, psychology or psychosomatic medicine?

There's a monumental difference. And the core of this difference needs to be thoroughly grasped by the Christian Scientist. Failing to understand this particular point can stall a healing.

Two illustrations may help. First, suppose yesterday you were tacking a picture up on the wall. And suppose the hammer met your finger instead of the head of the tack. Many would say the discomfort is the result of missing the mark—the hammer being the immediate cause.

Now suppose instead that you remember having dreamed last night of tacking a picture on the wall. Again, you missed the tack. In thinking about the dream, you can see that the pain obviously was not caused by a hammer. The cause was mental. The pain, even though experienced while you were asleep, represented a state of thought—the perception of an untimely meeting between hammer and finger.

The first illustration represents the traditional assumption that matter is causative: hammer, finger, pain. The second can aid in showing the shift some people are making in recognizing the human mind as a significant factor in pain. Those who have come to that conclusion may try to adjust the human mind as a way of dealing with the pain. This is where so many of today's materialistic systems leave the individual—struggling along with the human mentality, trying to dam up its flood of influences on the body.

Sometimes people mistake this for Christian Science; they suppose prayer to be a manipulation of the human mind, an effort to make this mind well instead of sick, happy instead of sad, fearless instead of afraid.

It is true that the Christian Scientist speaks of the human mind as the fundamental cause of discord and disease. But he sees such a cause existing only within the realm of the human mind's dreamy perception of reality. That's a finite realm. In the final analysis it's a view that is mistaken, even unreal.

In other words, the Scientist not only rejects matter as ultimate cause, he recognizes the great need to wake up from the whole belief of material mentality as cause. Real cause is God, infinite Mind, and He causes only good. If we get too caught up in, and dwell too substantially on, the cause-and-effect relationship between the human mind and physical disease, we stay mentally fixed within the dream of mortality. And this can obstruct rather than foster genuine healing.

Yes, we often must pinpoint the state of thought manifesting itself as disease. But no matter how clearly we recognize dishonesty or hatred or fear as the cause of disease, we will not truly overcome the evil until we take the more important step of seeing that real cause is actually God, divine Mind, which could not cause the opposite of itself.

These two points from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy state fundamental truths regarding genuine cause:

• "Divine Mind is the only cause or Principle of existence. Cause does not exist in matter, in mortal mind, or in physical forms." ^{Science and Health, p. 262.}

• "Immortal Mind is the only cause; therefore disease is neither a cause nor an effect. Mind in every case is the eternal God, good." ^{Ibid., p. 415.}

We can be grateful when prayer alerts us to relinquish faulty traits of thought. But how do we dismiss these traits? Through spiritual awakening. Not merely by saying that Mind is cause. But through surrendering to the Christ, the enlightening power of Truth, which reveals Mind alone as the creative power of the universe. The Christ has a transforming effect on us; it enables us to see the human mind's relationship to discord—but at the same time we see the actual, immortal, unerring nature of real Mind. Christ Jesus destroyed wrongful states of thought. He could see the trouble they caused. But he wasn't destroying reality. He was bringing reality to light by replacing false thoughts with real thoughts—the health and harmony caused by God.

God, the only cause, is truly good. The Bible reminds us, "For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations." ^{Isa. 61:11.} Our prayers can certainly expose the fallacy that cause exists in matter. And those prayers can effectively reveal, and lead us to overturn, the facets of mortal mind that would claim to be the cause of disease. But our primary thrust is the wonderful awakening that brings to light the one, all-embracing, divine cause.

The more clearly we understand man and the universe as the perfect effect of perfect Mind, the more effective will be our healing work.

NATHAN A. TALBOT

Now thanks be unto God,
which always causeth us
to triumph in Christ,
and maketh manifest the savour
of his knowledge by us in every place.

II Corinthians 2:14