Mary Baker Eddy writes in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (pp.9,10), "Whatever enlarges man's facilities for knowing and doing good, and subjugates matter, has a fight with the flesh." Much depends on the way an erroneous situation is faced by the one whose duty it is to fight with the flesh and overcome it. Mortal mind is by nature self-loving and ease-loving, and faced with a difficult situation a mortal is inclined to withdraw from the contest or else attack it in a militant manner.
The bellicose and pacifist attitudes of mortal mind represent two extremes, neither of which, spiritually speaking, is the right way. The most effective way to deal with an error is not through aggression or timidity, but by arresting, impersonalizing, and destroying it through Truth. This is done by the utilization of the spiritual forces of divine Mind. Mrs. Eddy further writes (ibid. p.10), "Utilizing the capacities of the human mind uncovers new ideas, unfolds spiritual forces, the divine energies, and their power over matter, molecule, space, time, mortality." These spiritual forces are brought into action through the spiritualization of thought; and although there is no bellicosity in our utilization of them, there is a warfare with oneself and with error in general which will overcome every error on the basis of its nothingness.
A student of Christian Science will recognize and realize that error is nothing because God is All. He will not only affirm, but hold to, the conviction this affirmation brings. It is by the realization and conviction of Truth in action that we triumph. This conviction is born of Spirit and carries with it the enforcement of spiritual law, which brings about a perfect adjustment in human affairs.
