Editorial July 28, 1997 Issue

Healing the sick: the need to be discerning

Russ Gerber

THE method of spiritual healing explained in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, shows that an understanding of God, divine Truth, uncovers and wipes out whatever is believed to be the cause of disease. Christian Science shows that all disease is mental in nature and therefore is corrected through mental and spiritual means. It's actually the effect of fear, ignorance, or sin. And so the antidote is an understanding of the all-loving, all-knowing, all-good God—divine Mind—and of the wholeness and harmony of man's being as God's image.

But does this mean that there's nothing we need to know about the nature of disease and its apparent cause in order to treat it effectively through prayer and spiritual understanding?

We do need to know—to discern—what's at the root of a disease. We need to be discerning if we're to detect and eliminate the belief (or beliefs) appearing to cause the discord. But there's an important distinction to be made here. We're talking about what's learned through spiritual discernment, not physical diagnosis. Science and Health explains, "A physical diagnosis of disease—since mortal mind must be the cause of disease—tends to induce disease" (p.370). When the fear, ignorance, or sin that's resulting in the discord is uncovered and destroyed, the discord ends.

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