Knowing the Truth

HERMAN CAMPBELL BLYE

Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." To gain an understanding of this healing truth, then, is the all-important quest. And Pilate's question to Jesus, "What is truth?" receives a clear, demonstrable answer in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and the other writings of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. What is it from which men need to be set free? From accepting and believing that to be true which is the opposite of Truth, that is, error. And there is just one liberator, and that is a knowledge or understanding of the truth. This understanding is now possible for all through a study of the authorized Christian Science literature in connection with the Bible.

To know the truth is very different from merely making declarations about the truth. Such declarations are, however, most necessary; and they are preliminary to reaching the point where the absolute knowing of the truth is realized. To know the truth is to be conscious of things as they really are to the exclusion from our thought of any belief or faith in their seeming opposites. It is this knowing or realizing of the truth that frees us from the false beliefs which we have been accepting as true, and which have seemed so real to us. These false beliefs are the mist spoken of in the Bible; and this mist—this erroneous thinking—is what hides from our view the real universe and the real man created by God, divine Mind, who is eternally expressing Himself in His perfect ideas, which constitute the perfect universe of Mind, including individual man, which is ever the same, and which continues eternally.

To know the truth is to understand spiritual facts; and this is to realize that man is perfect now, not needing to be developed, to be healed, or to be saved. All that needs to be done in order to see this perfect man of God's creating is to rid our mental realm of the false beliefs we have been entertaining about God's man. This, however, cannot be accomplished entirely at once, but requires much consistent and persistent effort; it is a progressive process, and is attained in exact proportion to our progress in the understanding of the truth.

On page 410 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "The Scriptures say, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,' showing that Truth is the actual life of man; but mankind objects to making this teaching practical." To know the truth which is Life is to know that the Life which is God is continuous and eternally harmonious; and this knowing does not leave even a suggestion to the contrary, namely, that Life can be discordant or limited. It is cause for rejoicing when we have begun to understand that, however discordant our material so-called existence may have seemed to be, it never was real or true, and was nothing but a discordant, distorted sense of existence, and never any part of our real being. Then since man's real being, which is of God, is perfect now, our only need is to gain an understanding of the truth. As we approximate this understanding, error will become more and more unreal to us, until finally it will not even seem to be present or to have power, as a person or a thing. When we have had even a glimpse of the truth, error can never again seem so real or so powerful.

On page 174 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy has written: "Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practised." And students of Christian Science, realizing the great good that has come to them through their honest efforts to put into practice the understanding of the truth they have gained through their study of Christian Science, are very grateful to Mrs. Eddy, their dear Leader, for the wonderful revelation of Truth she has left as a priceless legacy to all mankind in the Christian Science movement, this movement which she founded, and through which unnumbered thousands are being raised from the depths of sin and sickness to health and happiness. The promise is, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

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