The theology of Christian Science includes the healing of sickness as well as of sin and by the same spiritual means. Physical healing is not the more important, but it does illustrate the signs which follow the reformation of thought and action. With the Apostle James, Christian Science says (2:18), "Shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works."
Basic in the theology of Christian Science is the teaching that sick bodies are the effect of sick thoughts and that in order to heal the body, we must first heal, or correct, the thoughts causing the error. This process is sometimes difficult for mankind to accept, since the body is usually considered as something entirely separate from the mind. But the fact is that we embrace the body in our thinking.
Christian Science goes a step further by declaring that all wrong thinking, including sickness, is an element of sinful sense and denies the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, divine Mind. This teaching too is a departure from ordinary theological views, which classify sin as pertaining to fleshly lusts only, while sickness is often regarded as a punishment or test sent by God. Does this mean that Christian Science considers the sick man more sinful than others because he is sick? To tell someone in need of physical healing that he is a sinner would be neither just nor kind unless a scientific explanation were given. Mary Baker Eddy answers this question in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." She writes (p. 318): "Is the sick man sinful above all others? No! but so far as he is discordant, he is not the image of God."
