When a Christian Scientist says he or she has been healed by spiritual means, a skeptical friend may reckon, “The condition would have healed on its own anyway.” So, how can Christian Scientists claim that prayer heals?
One of Mary Baker Eddy’s early students once healed a severely injured person—a man who had been struck on the forehead with the butt of an axe. The student asked Mrs. Eddy if it was really possible that what little she had learned from reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures had healed the man. Eddy responded, “Certainly; always give credit to Truth” (Janette E. Weller, “The Human Side of Mrs. Eddy,” We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. II, p. 45).
It seems to me that it is always the case that, back of all the good that is going on, the goodness of God is operating—and prevailing. God’s law is the natural order of things, revealing the activity of divine Principle everywhere. Because Christ Jesus was perfectly in tune with this spiritual reality, he healed. He witnessed wholeness as divinely natural, not miraculous. Mary Baker Eddy described Jesus’ healings as “indigenous to his spirituality” (Science and Health, p. 270). He healed according to the truth he taught and lived—and it is also in our nature to know harmony, the kingdom of heaven, here and now.
