IN a world where materialism in all its forms is aggressive, where, in human belief, the suggestions of evil are rife, where the evidences of want and woe and sin are ever at hand, the Christian Scientist finds his shield against these trials and his shelter from these temptations in the knowledge of the truth which Christian Science brings to him. This understanding of Truth must be sustained in his thinking. It must be so established with him that it becomes the natural and spontaneous outlook upon existence. He must be ready at each instant to reject the false claims of materiality and to keep thought so fortified in the knowledge of God's presence and power that the mist of temptation can never prevail. This is essential, if he would succeed in the demonstration of Christian Science.
He who mentally stands in the attitude of Christian Science treatment affirms and strives to realize the revealed truth about God, about man and the universe, and is alert to the claims of evil. The truth about God is His allness; His all-power as Spirit, as divine Mind, as divine Principle, as the tender, loving Father-Mother, caring for the welfare of all creation. The truth about man and the universe is the fact of their existence here and now in the spiritual perfection of the infinite Love from which they spring and in which they have radiant, endless being. And the truth about the claims of evil is their nothingness—their utter nothingness in the real universe, where God and His infinite idea constitute the whole of being.
To keep this spiritual outlook upon real being, the Christian Scientist must be consistently thinking and living according to the ways of Truth and Love. To theorize about the sunlight, for example,—to speculate about it, to tell others how it warms the earth and how it makes things grow,—does not in the least warm the earth or make things grow. Not a spear of grass would respond to any amount of talking about the sunlight. The sun itself must appear; its own light and warmth must be poured upon and into the earth; and then all things rise in gladness under its loving, reviving presence. So with Truth and Love. They must actually be lived, warming our lives and affections, turning them from self to service, from indifference to tender consideration for the welfare of everybody and everything. And to maintain this spiritually right position and to persevere in these good ways of Truth and Love, the Christian Scientist at all times needs the shield and buckler of the arguments of Truth.
Argument for Truth is simply the continuing restatement of the truth. Thought is refreshed, renewed, by reassurances concerning Truth. Argument is the constant reminder, through reiteration in one's own thought, of what is true and of what is not true about God and man and the universe. Argument is not a mental altercation, in which there is something erroneous to talk to and to hear from in return, but is rather the ladder of thought by which we ourselves climb, by which we lift our own thought, round by round, to the higher places. Such argument is primarily for the benefit of him who exercises his own thought by it; for it clears him, quickens, strengthens, fortifies, settles him in the truth he knows to be true. Mrs. Eddy in her writings makes it plain that sometime one will attain spiritual understanding so completely that he will need no fortifying argument to hold his thought in that sure place. Truth is, indeed, self-sustaining, and maintains itself and all that expresses it. But she also makes it clear that until such final exaltation is reached, the arguments of Truth are needed to keep the balance on the right side. They not only are needed, but are God-given and precious; for they are divine reassurances which should increasingly take on, and impart, higher light and power.
Mrs. Eddy writes in her sermon "Christian Healing" (p. 10), "If you wish to be happy, argue with yourself on the side of happiness; take the side you wish to carry, and be careful not to talk on both sides, or to argue stronger for sorrow than for joy." Surely this must mean that we are to use faithfully what we call argument, thus maintaining the right spiritual position in the face of all supposed difficulty.
Such argument is the great truth-teller which testifies to reality. It informs and re-forms thought. It is an active plea for God's presence and power, a plea which disproves the lie that would claim that God is absent. Mrs. Eddy points to mortal mind to be thus disproved when she writes (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 12), "The action and effects of this so-called human mind in its silent arguments, are yet to be uncovered and summarily dealt with by divine justice." This being so, counter arguments, Truth-lighted and Truth-empowered, should be actively employed on the side of divine justice. And argument on God's side, when Truth and Love are ascendant in the daily life, cannot fail to be protective, saving, effective to the uttermost.
The Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, is itself the fullness of argument, in that it sets forth a reasoning unfoldment of the statements of Truth. Every Christian Science service exalts the argument for the power of good. Every Christian Science lecture, every testimony, every word uttered or written for Truth, is mighty argument. Every study hour, every prayer, every Christian Science treatment, sets in motion heavenly argument for the power of Christian healing. As long as language expresses thought and there are still heights to gain, there must be argument, prayer, divine reasoning, and reassurances to hold and protect realization until its complete fruition. The activity of the spiritual idea saving human consciousness from wrong beliefs is the divine arguer, the agent of the redeemer. Argument continually pleads God's allness and resists the opposer. Jesus used argument from the Holy Scriptures against the tempter in the wilderness, a course of argument which spiritually strengthened his own thought until the battle was won. Then "angels came and ministered unto him."
The argument for Truth is the active exercise of spiritual understanding which keeps thought fresh-running and pure. True argument is as a strong, bright, cleansing wind scattering the mental laziness, the greed, the fear, the suffering, blowing away the miasma of material sense, freshening and invigorating the outlook with the divine movements of spiritual power. Therefore, we as Christian Scientists do not neglect the argument or treatment, the office of which is to convince our own thought of God's healing presence and power, the action of which persuades us through constant renewal of divine assurances that whatever would oppose God has in reality no power. So may we keep the bright breezes of truthful affirmations ever sweeping through our thought, clearing it of the mistiness of doubt and fear. Thus are our spiritual intuitions and convictions constantly marshaled against temptation by the ever renewed reminders of all the truth that we can know.
A loved hymn reads,
"The thought of Thee is mightier far
Than sin and pain and sorrow are."
"The thought of Thee" is the all-conquering angel which we must heed.
Our revered Leader lifts us to the pinnacle of the question when she writes in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 319): "If good is God, even as God is good, then good and evil can neither be coeval nor coequal, for God is All-in-all. This closes the argument of aught besides Him, aught else than good."
