Most health care systems gain a following because physical health improves, at least to some degree, when people adhere to the procedures. Without that apparent improvement, material medicine, acupuncture, hypnotism, or any other limited system would diminish. People will support what they believe helps them. More accurately stated, what people believe helps them becomes a kind of temporary support to them.

An important question needs to be asked about the long-term effect of systems of health care. When there is improvement, has genuine health replaced illness, or has a body with fewer surface symptoms replaced a body that once had more obvious symptoms? Speaking of hypnotism, for instance, Mrs. Eddy warns: "The hypnotizer employs one error to destroy another. If he heals sickness through a belief, and a belief originally caused the sickness, it is a case of the greater error overcoming the lesser. This greater error thereafter occupies the ground, leaving the case worse than before it was grasped by the stronger error." ^{Science and Health, p. 104;}

Christian Science alone places healing on a scientific spiritual basis. It takes healing entirely out of the realm of belief and plants it firmly within the realm of God's law. Mortal experience is filled with so-called laws—theories based on the observation of recurring behavior. One kind of law, for example, might attribute illness to heredity. Another so-called law would demand that the symptoms disappear or be lessened when certain medical treatment is given. But neither the illness nor materially based treatment has true law underlying it. Human belief underlies both. "There is a law of God applicable to healing, and it is a spiritual law instead of material," ^{ibid., p. 463;} writes Mrs. Eddy.

Christian Science healing is actually the scientific operation of divine law. It brings to bear on temporary human concepts the spiritual facts of reality. It replaces limited, erring perceptions with divine truths of being. The reason scientific Christian healing has power is that God's law, the law of Truth itself, underlies the healing effect. The reason material methods of healing appear to have power is that the strength of human concepts underlies them. But those strengths are subject to being easily sheared, like Samson's locks of hair, by mutable mortal belief. ^{See Judg. 16;}

Regardless of the kind of discord one might be facing, there is a specific law of God that will counter and destroy the evil.

Does this mean that God maintains a large volume of laws used to counter various problems? God's one infinite law of perfection is the unchanging reality of all being. Each of us individually needs to gain very specific perspectives of that infinite law. Discord suggests a particular reversal of perfection. Various errors would be specific rejections of the truth of being. They might be sponsored by so-called health laws. We must challenge such false laws with specific truths that are rooted in divine law.

An unyielding chronic difficulty, for instance, may rest upon mortal mind's supposed effort to counterfeit the fact that divine law is irreversible, eternal. The basic discords of mortal existence are very direct misstatements of the divine law of being, which sustains the perfection of reality.

The operation of divine law—the law that brings healing—is not a personal possession. Its effectiveness is not dependent merely upon our own efforts. Divine law is universally operating at all times. We don't cause divine law to be. We respond to law that is. We conform to its continuing activity. Human health laws are fickle and inexact. The spiritual law that underpins Christian healing is unalterable and enduring.

Christ Jesus drew on divine law to accomplish his healing work. His healings were based upon spiritual truths, which produced an effect far beyond what he could personally have accomplished. The blind and lame were not made whole because Jesus demanded that they be whole. They were healed because Jesus recognized the authority of Christ, Truth, which constitutes the basic law of perfection.

Jesus accepted this law for himself. He applied it to the needs of others. Spiritual law dissolved the discords that were underpinned by human belief. Mrs. Eddy assures us: "Truth casts out all evils and materialistic methods with the actual spiritual law,—the law which gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice to the dumb, feet to the lame. If Christian Science dishonors human belief, it honors spiritual understanding; and the one Mind only is entitled to honor." ^{Science and Health, p. 183;}

The Christian Scientist honors God's law. He is learning that health and security are not dependent on materiality. Nor can they be violated by unlawful mortal belief. True being is embraced by unfailing divine law. Love never fails to comfort us. Principle never fails to maintain our integrity. Life never fails to preserve us. The ultimate preservation of our wholeness is not dependent upon mortal efforts—our own or another's. It is dependent on the operation of universal divine law—and each of us has the capacity to respond effectively. Divine law is constant. It never fluctuates with the current of human thought.

"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul," ^{Ps. 19:7.} the Psalmist tells us. We can be converted. We can be redeemed by God's law. As we understand that He alone provides true law, our healing work will be more consistent because it will rest more firmly on the conviction that His law ensures success.

Nathan A. Talbot