Faith and Healing

Albert F. Gilmore

OF the part which faith plays in healing mortals of their false beliefs, Mrs. Eddy has plainly spoken. She discriminates, however, between the so-called faith cures and the scientific healing which is brought about through spiritual understanding. Healing through faith may not—in fact, probably does not—include regeneration, the purification of consciousness which healing in its deepest significance implies. In describing her experience when searching for the rules of divine healing, Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 109), "I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing." Here our Leader recognizes faith, holy and uplifting, as an agency of healing. Apparently she was convinced that while the cures wrought by the early Christians may have restored the sense of health completely, yet they may not have resulted from the transformation of consciousness which Christianizes mankind. And so she searched for the rule and process of divine law, which heals through regeneration.

In ascribing certain healings to the operation of faith, Mrs. Eddy was following precisely in the footsteps of Christ Jesus. "According to your faith be it unto you," he said to the blind men. "And their eyes were opened." And to the woman who had suffered from an issue of blood for many years he declared, "Thy faith hath made thee whole." Even more emphatically did the Master set forth the efficacy of faith when he declared that the possession of faith even "as a grain of mustard seed" would enable its possessor to move mountains. So extraordinary is the power which Jesus ascribes to faith that we are constrained to believe it something vastly more than mere belief. Therefore, to gain the full significance of these passages, it must be recognized that the quality of faith to which he accorded such power partakes of the profound assurance which comes from full-hearted trust, from sublime confidence in God, and in divine omnipotence as the loving Father, available to destroy every false belief.

Mrs. Eddy makes perfectly clear the different degrees of faith, and discriminates between blind, faltering faith and the faith based upon understanding—the deep assurance which grows out of demonstrated proof of the facts of being. She attributes even to blind faith, however, some degree of efficacy as a curative agency. On page 398 of Science and Health she writes, "Even a blind faith removes bodily ailments for a season, but hypnotism changes such ills into new and more difficult forms of disease." Many illustrations of the cure of bodily ills brought about in this manner may be cited. The healing agency in such instances is merely the faith which the individual reposes in some remedy or cure, perhaps wholly material, and with no knowledge what soever either of its process or of the true healing agency, the Christ, Truth. Undoubtedly, healing has often been wrought through stimulating faith in God. But unless faith is accompanied with some understanding of the operation of spiritual law, it can scarcely be said to be scientific destruction of the claims of evil.

Christian Scientists learn, also, to discriminate between belief and faith; and while belief in God and in Christ, Truth, is a far better state of thought than belief in evil as real and potent, yet in time of stress mere belief is a slender reed to lean upon. Belief in God, good, however, may be a first step to the gaining of that faith which, based upon understanding, removes mountains of error. Mrs. Eddy, on page 297 of Science and Health, has spoken of this in clarifying words: "Until belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual understanding, human thought has little relation to the actual or divine."

The Christian Scientist's concern, then, is to be sure that what at first might have been his belief that God is, that He is good and is available to meet the needs of mankind, has through demonstration become faith based upon scientific understanding. How can I strengthen my faith? is the question which every conscientious worker in Truth frequently asks himself. And he prays for increased assurance, as well as for more understanding. The experience facing mortals of continually meeting the testimony of physical sense, so called, necessitates constant watchfulness; constant standing guard at the door of consciousness in order to guard against the intrusion of evil, of false beliefs of every type; constant abiding in the sure sense of God's presence; constant longing to be purified and sanctified; constant asking divine Love to bestow an ever larger measure of "holy, uplifting faith"—these are the means whereby faith will be strengthened; for they lead to an enhanced understanding of God, of divine law, and of its perfect operation. A larger faith and increased understanding are the common need.

Albert F. Gilmore

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