Conviction can only follow understanding. Spiritual understanding of the allness of God and of man as His image and likeness, as revealed in Christian Science, convinces us of the truth of being. Lack of conviction means lack of understanding and of absolute faith.
Truth is God, and God is omnipresent and omnipotent, the only cause and creator, perfect and eternal. Man exists as the perfect effect of this perfect cause, pure, whole, and harmonious. The realization of the truth about God and man dispels the belief that man is material and imperfect. The perfection of God and man is the basis of Christian Science treatment, and from this basis we deny the false claims of mortal mind until they yield to the truth. When human thought is convinced, it accepts the truth, and healing follows naturally.
A Christian Science treatment is the acknowledgment of the allness and ever-presence of God, Truth; and the realization of this great truth unfolds to human consciousness that in God's spiritual universe there is no matter, no sin, sickness, or death, no patient to be healed. It is never a human personality called a practitioner or any special human quality or virtue which heals, but always the Christ, Truth.
"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy fully reveals the truth of being. The Christian Science textbook has in innumerable cases been the only practitioner, and the reader who has accepted the truth as stated in its pages, has been healed. Why? Because the false concept of God and man has been exchanged for the true idea. Sin, no less than sickness and death—indeed, all inharmony—is the result of ignorance of reality. Material, sinful beliefs yield to the purity of spiritual sense in proportion as one grasps the true idea of God and man.
A Christian Science treatment starts from the basis of the perfection of God and of man as His image and likeness. It affirms the truth of being and denies the erroneous condition, whatever its claim. Christian Science treatment is not human will. It does not try to force the truth of being into human consciousness. The practitioner becomes so conscious of God as omnipotent, omnipresent Love, and of man as His beloved son, that the human thought which has believed in the reality of some form of evil yields to the tender persuasion of the Christ, Truth, and is healed.
The first words of the first chapter of Science and Health read (p. 1): "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love." Our Leader continues, "Regardless of what another may say or think on this subject, I speak from experience." Absolute faith in God is the keynote of Christian Science treatment. Mrs. Eddy's lifework proves that she did indeed speak from experience. To her, the beauty of holiness, the loveliness of Love, and the abundance of God's goodness were all-pervading, and in the light of this understanding she faced and overcame so-called evil, thus proving its unreality. As the sun dispels every shadow upon which its rays fall, so the Christ, Truth, annihilates the false suggestions of mortal mind.
Spiritual understanding destroys fear, the cause of physical ills, because it perceives that the allness of Love leaves no room for anything of which to be afraid. It denounces the so-called material perfection of the world as a fleeting dream, and affirms the spiritual universe as eternal and ever-present reality. It sees that man is not an isolated human being seeking God, but the inseparable idea of the one perfect Mind, the reflection of divine Love, the uninterrupted expression of everlasting Life.
It sees, further, that evil is not a powerful entity, but merely the supposititious opposite of Truth; therefore matter and its concomitants—sin, sickness, and death—have no substance or reality. Through her deep love for God and her absolute conviction of His omnipotence, Mrs. Eddy has given to the world the Science of Christianity which Jesus lived. Christian Science demonstrates that it is not what we know about error that heals the sick, but what we know of Truth. It is the spiritual understanding of the real man and his relation to God that destroys every false belief about man.
Christ Jesus never wavered in his conviction of the omnipotence of God, Truth, and of man's oneness with Him. He knew man to be the perfect son of his perfect Father, and hence he could say to his followers (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." His treatments, if we can call them such, rang with his conviction of man's perfectness. So absolutely did this spiritual truth permeate his consciousness that with perfect assurance he was able successfully to command the lame to walk, the blind to see, the sinners to be cleansed, and the dead to rise.
No shadow of doubt dimmed his demonstration of the power of God, Truth, over mistaken human thinking, and no shadow of doubt should appear in the thought of Christian Scientists to hinder their demonstration of the power and presence of God. To the ten lepers who came to him for healing, Jesus said (Luke 17:14), "Go shew yourselves unto the priests." What conviction was here! No leper could show himself to the priests until he was clean of his disease; yet so convinced was Jesus of the truth of being that the lepers were willing to obey him, "and it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed." Such was the unshakable assurance of Jesus.
To those who believe on him, the Master said (John 8:31, 32), "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Not, it will be noticed, that we shall know about the truth or read about the truth, but that we shall know the truth itself or be thoroughly convinced of it through spiritual understanding. To know the truth is to know God and His idea, man, with absolute and immovable certainty and conviction.
A question we may well ask ourselves if healing does not quickly result from Christian Science treatment is, "Am I really knowing the truth with absolute faith or conviction, or am I still believing, even in a small degree, that there is a power apart from God, that sin, sickness, and death are real?" Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health says that to the frightened sense of the patient sickness is not imaginary, but solid conviction. (See Science and Health 460: 14-18.) She shows that the only way to remove the conviction that sickness is real is to replace it with the spiritual understanding that man is perfect because he is the image and likeness of perfect God. If the reality of sickness be the conviction, it must be denied and the truth of being established in consciousness.
Some years ago the writer, while reading in bed, put his hand up to the back of his head and felt a lump about the size of an egg. Many years before, when he had discovered a tiny lump on his head, he had been informed by a doctor that if the lump should become larger it would require an operation. The writer immediately took up Science and Health and read pages 390 to 393. Instructing us to deny every claim of error, Mrs. Eddy says (p. 390), "Dismiss it with an abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no more the author of sickness than He is of sin."
The writer declared the truth about God as Spirit, and tried to realize His allness and perfection and the consequent nothingness and unreality of matter. He declared that since man is the image and likeness of God, he is spiritual, and not composed of matter which claims to swell and cause distress; that since he is the reflection of Life, nothing discordant or dangerous can enter his being; that since he is the reflection of Mind, he neither knows nor is mesmerized by false beliefs.
The writer pondered these truths for some time, and then put his hand up to his head to see if the lump was still there. And it was. Why? Because he had not been thoroughly convinced of the truth about spiritual reality that he had been declaring, else he would not have been eager to see if the lump had disappeared. Such action was proof that he was still holding to the false belief that man is material, subject to abnormal conditions. Consequently, since the body manifests whatever is held in consciousness, the manifestation of wrong thinking still remained. He set to work again to gain a deeper understanding of the allness of God, and fell asleep conscious only of the perfection of man in God's image. He was not surprised, therefore, that the lump disappeared during the night.
Through the study of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook we spiritualize our thought; and as we utilize the truth revealed in Christian Science, evil becomes less real to us. To heal instantaneously as Christ Jesus did is the goal of every Christian Scientist. An exalted state of consciousness is not reached, however, without consecrated effort and living. This is not a depressing or wearisome work, if we go forward expressing joy and gratitude for the truth contained in our textbooks. The writer of Proverbs says (22:20, 21), "Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth?"
