Sometimes a Christian Science practitioner is asked if he or she would be willing to pray for a patient if he wishes to rely on medication as well as on God for healing. The practitioner must refuse, but on occasion may wonder if the individual really understands why the request for help has been declined.
In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy leaves the choice between medicine and Mind, God, to the individual. She instructs the practitioner to relinquish cases where the individual chooses medicine, leaving the individual free to follow whatever course he feels is best for him.See Science and Health 443: 14-444:6. But she explains that only as we get on one side—the side of Truth—can permanent and regenerative healing take place.
We need to be clear on this point, for if we give power to both the material and the spiritual, we actually have little help at all. Christ Jesus said: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Matt. 6:24.
