What is Health?

Duncan Sinclair

In the fourth chapter of Luke's Gospel are to be found the words, "Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them." And the healer referred to was Christ Jesus, the Founder of the Christian religion, whose words and works Christian Science honors to the full. No mention is made by Luke as to the Master's making use of any material remedy; and for the simple reason that his practice was altogether a spiritual one, based on his understanding of reality. Since Jesus' method of healing was spiritual, that is, since it was the application of his understanding of God and the real creation, health must necessarily be mental in its nature. What happened when the Master healed leprosy, paralysis, fever, or made the blind to see and the deaf to hear? He destroyed the erroneous beliefs which claimed to cause these maladies, replacing them with the consciousness of harmony, which consciousness he knew to be the only real consciousness.

Christian Science gives the explanation of Jesus' method of healing; and it is a very simple explanation. Christian Science begins by admitting the allness of God as good. It then reasons that since God, good, is infinite, only that which is good can be real, and concludes that since disease or sickness is not good it cannot be real. What must follow? That when the consciousness of that which is real displaces belief in the unreal, disease is destroyed and health reigns. Mrs. Eddy puts it in the plainest possible way when she writes in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 11), "Health is the consciousness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else." Then follows a sentence which has given hope to many a sufferer: "In a moment you may awake from a nightdream; just so you can awake from the dream of sickness; but the demonstration of the Science of Mind-healing by no means rests on the strength of human belief."

Health, then, is "the absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else"—an entirely spiritual state. And since it is an entirely spiritual state, it is not dependent on matter, so called. Indeed, in Christian Science practice erroneous material conditions or symptoms are taken into account only to deny them, in the light of Spirit's allness and perfection. Usually material beliefs bulk largely in the thought of the sick; and these false material beliefs must be swept away by spiritual understanding, for it is they which are responsible for all apparent discord. Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 400), "Mortals obtain the harmony of health, only as they forsake discord, acknowledge the supremacy of divine Mind, and abandon their material beliefs."

Should anyone desire to recover health, then, through Christian Science, he should strive through study of the Bible and Science and Health to obtain an understanding of God, Spirit, as All-in-all, thus grasping the fact of the unreality of matter and all material beliefs. As one perceives the allness of Spirit and matter's unreality, thought becomes spiritualized and one rises above material beliefs, becoming more harmonious in his thoughts, purer, more honest, and more loving. And the more harmonious one's thinking, the more harmonious one's body becomes. This is beyond cavil, a fact which has been proved in numerous instances in Christian Science practice. But work is required, earnest, patient work, on the part of all who take up the study of Christian Science for healing. They must be prepared to sacrifice every erroneous belief, every false material concept, every sinful thought, if they would enter into that "absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else," which is health.

Should the road seem a hard one to travel to the one afflicted with disease, he must remember the entirely illusory nature of disease: God, the infinitely good Mind, neither created it, nor does He know aught about it. And should self-pity try to assert itself, it must be met by the understanding that God gives only good gifts to His children. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" sang the Psalmist, "and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." Wonderful, beautiful, hope-inspiring words! Never should it be forgotten that, sickness being a dream, the awakening can take place in a moment. Ah, that moment! Who among Christian Scientists has not known it? Perhaps it came early in one's experience in Christian Science, perhaps it came only after much prayer and study; but when it did come—what joy! For one had demonstrated in some measure that "health is the consciousness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else."

Duncan Sinclair

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