Why is healing through prayer so important to Christian Scientists? For the same reason it was important to Christ Jesus. Healing illustrates tangibly the divine authority of the Science through which the healing is accomplished. It proves the power of divine Truth to eliminate from human experience that which is unlike God, who is infinite good.
We learn in Christian Science that prayer is the means by which we lift our thought to God. Prayer enables us to demonstrate man's unbroken unity with God and to experience His loving care. While prayer is often thought of as simply a petition, effective prayer includes a kind of spiritual reasoning, based on premises that are eternally true of God and His creation. Christian Scientists have found that God governs all that is real through unchanging, unerring laws that are certain in their effect. The operation of these spiritual laws constitutes God's divine Science.
When a Christian Scientist bases his prayer on divine Science, he is relying on an understanding of God's laws and their operation to eliminate the evidence of sickness and sin. We often use the term Christian Science treatment when prayer is employed to effect healing. This treatment looks to God's revelation of spiritual being to correct whatever is calling for healing.
