When we’re praying for healing, inspired reasoning can be an invaluable tool. Christian Science teaches the curative value of examining the facts of God’s nature to deduce the facts of our own real nature. And this, in turn, helps us see the reality of all that is good and Godlike in our lives and the unreality—the impossibility—of anything unlike good. Healing is the result. 

Deductive reasoning, rather than inductive reasoning, is often the most useful approach for coming to healing conclusions. Here’s why. Inductive reasoning may begin with the problem, such as lack, injury, injustice, or illness, and then reason from there in an attempt to understand what caused it. Rather than show us a way out of the problem, this faulty reasoning only mires us further in it. 

On the other hand, prayerful deductive reasoning commences with God, who is Love, Spirit, Life, and Mind. In her textbook on Christian healing, Mary Baker Eddy explains, “Reasoning from cause to effect in the Science of Mind, we begin with Mind, which must be understood through the idea which expresses it and cannot be learned from its opposite, matter” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 467).