CHRISTIAN SCIENCE healing may be correctly regarded in different ways. Thus, it may be regarded as including, or as not including, a personal agent and a personal subject. As described without a personal agent or subject, a healing occurs when infinite Mind, acting through spiritual sense, dispels an effect of material sense. As described with one person as both agent and subject, a healing occurs when a person, for himself, realizes a Christ-idea instead of a harmful belief. As described with a personal agent and a personal subject, a healing occurs when a practitioner receives from infinite Mind and realizes an absolute truth instead of an error entertained by a patient. In this case, the oneness of being and the effect of divine law furnish a further explanation. These factors help to explain why Jesus could say (Matthew 8:7), "I will come and heal him."
A case can be described as any condition, plight, or situation that calls for the overcoming of evil with good. In a particular case, therefore, the error or evil may affect more than one person or more than one person's rights. Christian Science practice is entirely ethical; but, in full accord with the highest ethics, any person whose rights are affected or threatened by an error can handle it thoroughly by spiritual treatment, and such a person can employ a practitioner for this purpose. This statement is amply illustrated in the Master's ministry. For instances, see Luke 7:1-16. Further, the proposition just stated introduces an aid to healing; for spiritual treatment should be upon the plane where error or evil is detached from persons. Mrs. Eddy has declared the correct viewpoint in these emphatic words (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 71): "Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense."
In the final analysis, Christian Science healing is divine healing; hence, it is facilitated when the persons involved can think little of their human selves and much of real being. Nevertheless, practitioners may and should desire and insist on some degree of cooperation from patients. Opinions may differ as to what should be the minimum requirement, but it may be the sincere desire to be healed by Christian Science. Did not Jesus imply this requirement when he asked the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:6), "Wilt thou be made whole?" For the patient to expect healing, and expect it quickly, is even more helpful; for this would be an active factor on the side of success. Expectation is like faith, any degree of which is helpful. It may be only a "faith to be healed" (Acts 14:9), or it may be the faith that heals; which is "an absolute faith that all things are possible to God" (Science and Health, p. 1).
