Article April 15, 2013 Issue

Seven synonyms: steps to healing

Hal Shrewsbury

Mary Baker Eddy describes the healing effect of Christian Science as “... the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. xi).

The term Principle as a synonym for God is unique to Christian Science. In the age in which Mary Baker Eddy lived, the principles of electricity, flight, and mechanical transport were just being discovered and utilized. These principles had always existed, but were only useful to mankind when they were discovered and understood. An airplane seen flying in Jesus’ time would have been considered a miracle, but today we understand it to be the principle of aerodynamics in operation. Likewise, Jesus’ healings were considered miracles for 1900 years, until Mrs. Eddy discovered them to be the operation of divine Principle, God.

After discovering Christian Science in 1866, she spent the rest of her life explaining it so that all could understand and utilize this system or science of healing. In her book Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy answers the question “What is God?” in the chapter “Recapitulation” in this way: “God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love” (p. 465). In her answer to the very next question, “Are these terms synonymous?” she clarifies that these synonyms “express the nature, essence, and wholeness of Deity.”