DOUBT is never a good thing, for it tends to cripple action, and neither prevents us doing wrong nor aids us to perceive the right; for this reason it is a subtle enemy which should be attacked and overcome. In this connection it is interesting to note, in many of the Bible narratives, the various expressions of doubt uttered by mortal mind when confronted by spiritual truth; for we have all at times been assailed by doubt and, according to our understanding, we have either covered it up, nursed it until it became a full-grown conviction, or, best of all, destroyed it.
There is a phase of human sense which rouses our interest and sympathy and which is the condition described by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p.115) as the "second degree," for, in the "scientific translation of mortal mind," an honest worker in Christian Science must necessarily have demonstrated, at all events, some of these transitional qualities. We can therefore study with appreciation and understanding the particular passages in the Bible where this translation of mortal mind to a higher degree is indicated, and it is here that we often find doubt expressed; but it is the honest doubt which utters itself in an earnest desire to learn the truth and so rise to that realization of Spirit, real being, which alone can destroy all those material beliefs which are the sole cause of uncertainty.
In some of the narratives, doubt is seen to be an expression of or result of sin; but these examples are also of value to the student of Christian Science, for the answer of spiritual understanding to any phase of mortal belief is an answer for all time and under all circumstances. There are innumerable instances, both in the Old and the New Testament, of mortal mind demanding instruction from immortal Mind, but the illustrations in the latter are more clearly defined, since Jesus reflected the divine intelligence to a degree which had never before been humanly expressed; so we get the sharp contrast between the carnal mind and spiritual understanding. In the fourteenth chapter of the gospel of John we find Jesus explaining the spiritual idea to his followers, and Thomas, in a state of chemicalization, interrupting him with, "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?"
