Logic is the science of correct reasoning. Spiritual healing, based on Christian Science treatment, is the result of spiritual understanding and divine logic. The premise that God is good and is All and that man is His perfect likeness impels the conclusion that disease and sin, being evil, have no place in the divine scheme of things.
"I know that," one might say, "so why must my logic be regenerated?"
Prayer may take many forms, but one aspect of prayer in Christian Science includes logical reasoning. Even experienced students of Christian Science need to take care not to mix spiritual premises inadvertently with human assumptions, or to build their reasoning on something other than a spiritual premise. When spiritual purity permeates understanding and reason is accurate, the enlightenment of the Christ, Truth, is realized in consciousness, and we see clearly enough to heal.
The goal of every Christian Scientist is to embody the light of the Christ in his or her own thought and express more Christliness. The more Christly our thought, the more healing works we bring forth.
In an article in Miscellaneous Writings entitled "Science and Philosophy" Mrs. Eddy asks the question "When shall earth be crowned with the true knowledge of Christ?" She answers with several conditions that precede this reign of Christ. One of these is "When mortal mind is silenced by the 'still, small voice' of Truth that regenerates philosophy and logic . . . ." Mis., p. 360.
There are many illogical concepts that need adjusting if one is to understand divine metaphysics. Let us consider a few of these major flaws, drawn from scholastic theology, which seem to block spiritual progress and healing. One flaw is illustrated when the healer tries through prayer to bring the Christ into his patient's thought. That's illogical because the spiritual fact is that the patient already has the Christ. It is ever present in every human consciousness. The need isn't to get the Christ into thought but to awaken the patient to the fact that the Christ is never absent. It isn't necessary to spend time working and praying to bring another to the consciousness of divine reality that is actually already his.
When we regenerate our logic, we see that no one can do for another anything that God has not already done for him. As the practitioner prays and declares the absolute spiritual facts of man's being, the activity of divine Truth uncovers the error that is mesmerizing a patient. One must know that Truth is the healer. Christ Jesus pointed this out to his followers when he said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32. The practitioner's and patient's job is to know the truth. The truth's effect is to make free.
Another aspect of logic that needs regenerating in order to awaken consciousness to the healing Christ is made evident when one feels he has to change a sick mortal body into a well mortal body. In Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, "the scientific statement of being," which is the ultimate of spiritual logic and the very thesis of Christian Science, reads in part: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. . . . Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual." Science and Health, p. 468.
When we accept this basic premise of Christian Science, logic tells us that matter is not a real entity to be healed, for neither sick matter nor well matter has any identity as God's man. A person's reluctance to admit this fact can be a deterring factor in healing. Not only does a practitioner check his or her own thoughts to be sure the logic has been uplifted to a spiritual basis but the practitioner gently leads the patient's thought in this Christly path of correct thinking and its ensuing healing action.
In Christian Science, God is cause— the only cause. All effect stems from this great cause. Man is effect; he is never cause. Man, the reflection of God, remains perfect because his cause, God, is perfect. Yet there are times when individuals forget that man is reflection. Cause is confused with effect, and the individual comes to the illogical conclusion that man is creator, the author of ideas, the source of action, the originator of volition and success.
Jesus never had to regenerate his logic, because he always knew who he was and what his purpose was. He refuted the false belief that man can be cause. He said: "I can of mine own self do nothing . . . ." John 5:30. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." John 5:17. "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." John 14:10. Knowing where the power actually belongs—with God, the cause— the Saviour confidently healed all manner of ills, raised the dead, and fed the multitudes.
One of the greatest needs in theology is a logical understanding of the relationship of Christ Jesus to God. Jesus knew his spiritual selfhood was the Christ, God's manifestation. He understood that he was the Son of God. He never claimed he was the Father. That would confuse the offices of cause and effect. But scholastic theology, neglecting the premise presented in Jesus' own words and not understanding Jesus' dual nature (the human man expressing the Christ, or divine ideal), came to the illogical conclusion that Jesus was God.
Another instance when a logical conclusion cannot be reached is when one tries to heal without a clear perception of the separateness of good and evil. Good is the only power, and to believe that evil has power brings forth confusion and blocks the patient's ability to perceive man's unbroken relationship to Mind, God, as Mind's perfect idea. God's unwavering control of His spiritual universe, including man, is a scientific fact in Christian Science—a correct premise that leads to a logical, healing conclusion.
The Bible teaches God's goodness and allness. To suppose that God, Principle —the only cause—could produce an effect called evil, devil, Satan, violates logical thinking. It is a fact in metaphysics that like produces like.
Then, where does evil come from? An uninspired theology makes God ultimately responsible for evil, and such theology firmly believes in evil's power and reality. Christian Science refutes these conclusions and proves them to be illogical according to spiritual reasoning. It draws a clear line of clarification between evil and good and firmly contends that good is real and evil is unreal.
A spiritual thinker never lets his perception of this demarcation, this spiritual understanding, waver—never gives in for an instant to the belief that evil has power or can control, or even destroy, man. When we take a firm stand on the side of Spirit, God, no material condition of sickness or sin can convince us of evil's reality. A Christian Scientist knows that evil, being unreal, never comes from anywhere, and the student learns not to legitimize its claim to place and power by arguing with its suppositions as though they had any real authority. The spiritual thinker knows that the forms of evil, as well as of matter, are only the objectification of a false mind, labeled by Paul as the carnal mind. This false mind has nothing to offer spiritual healing. To deal with the carnal mind as merely a supposition is to keep one's perception of the demarcation between the real and the unreal firmly in place, and when the facts of metaphysics are understood, one's logic is regenerated.
This separation of good from evil, good being all and evil nothing, is the basis of all spiritual healing. One who gains something of the understanding of the Christ that Jesus demonstrated is on the path of learning to heal as Jesus healed. The refusal to give in to evil's claim to a foothold in God's structure of reality deprives the evil of any claim to life, intelligence, truth, and substance.
Another violation of divine logic is to assume that God's will brings about such conditions as sickness, accident, distress of any kind, even death. How can the Father-Mother Principle decree pain and disaster for its beloved child? If God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil" Hab. 1:13.— and the Bible tells us He is—then how can this good cause will an evil effect? God's will for His creation is wholly good. It is the self-will of mortal mind that introduces into one's reasoning the illogical element of belief that evil can or does exist. All forms of error are but the objectifications of self-will, which would defy the will of God and resist the divine laws governing man.
Divine logic, permeating human thought, convinces one of the harmony, peace, and well-being that flow from divine Love. Who that understands this nature of God would even wish to defy Love's holy plan for its creation? Convinced of the goodness of God's plan, one yields willingly to the logic of Christian Science, which reveals God as cause and man as the reflection, or perfect effect, of this one great and good cause. Man then is seen as wholly good, for he flows from this divine cause that is totally good.
As our logic is regenerated, we demonstrate our understanding of true spiritual being. Thus it is that the reign of Christ begins to permeate every aspect of our lives, and the ensuing realization of the power of God's Christ brings spiritual healing.
