Spiritual reasoning

Spiritual reasoning is of prime importance in Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “God is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 471 , citation 1). Dictionary definitions of therefore include “for that reason … ; because of that; on that ground,” showing the relation of cause to effect, and help us answer the question, “Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?”

The eight sections of this Christian Science Bible Lesson reason with the reader: No sin, sickness, or death is real in God’s presence; therefore, we can prove their unreality in practical, healing ways through an understanding of God. 

Three Bible narratives are offered as case studies: a parable of repentance and redemption (see Luke 15:10–24 , cit. 8); a Gospel account of the healing of disease (see John 5:1–9 , cit. 13); and a story of restoration to life after an accidental death (see Acts 20:7–12 , cit. 17). Each of these extended sections is preceded by a shorter one that includes a statement that can be applied to any case of sin, disease, or death. 

For example, Section 2 includes the arresting words from First John: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (cit. 6), correlated with this citation from Science and Health: “The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God’s man” (p. 475 , cit. 6).

The redemption of “a mortal sinner” through recognition of “the real man”—“God’s man”—is at the heart of Christ Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son (see Sect. 3, cit. 8). According to The HarperCollins Study Bible, parables are “brief comparison stories, drawn from nature or everyday life, that tease the imagination, challenge accepted values, or illustrate a point.” Parables offer templates for healing, and the prodigal’s story is in the middle of a cluster of them in Luke 15 and 16.

The pool of Bethesda is the frame for Jesus’ healing of a chronic invalid, whose case is complicated by local superstition (see Sect. 5, cit. 13). The man gets up as the disease disappears. We could place the words of the Golden Text in his mouth: “I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High. When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence” (Psalms 9:2, 3 ). Bethesda, just outside the city walls in Jesus’ time, may have been a healing shrine of the Greek god Æsculepius. A pool site, including the colonnades, or “porches,” mentioned in the Gospel, was discovered by archaeologists in 1890. 

The story of Eutychus (see Sect. 7, cit. 17), whose Greek name means “fortunate,” completes the tripartite healing focus in this Lesson. The Apostle Paul quickly restores Eutychus to life in the midst of a night of informal preaching, offering proof of the reality of his gospel. And this act substantiates the words of Science and Health: “In infinite Life and Love there is no sickness, sin, nor death, and the Scriptures declare that we live, move, and have our being in the infinite God” (p. 381 , Sect. 8, cit. 29).