Christian healing: SCIENTIFIC?

Methuselah, according to the Bible, lived just short of a thousand years. Suppose his life had spanned this last millennium instead of beginning before Noah's day. He'd certainly have seen changes during those early Biblical times, but he'd have seen far more dizzying ones this last thousand years.

During the first third, for instance, Christianity was adopted as the new religion in Iceland, the Shogun of Japan issued that famous prohibition against drinking tea, the Tower of London was built, windmills were being constructed in Europe, and goose quills were the preferred technology for writing.

In the 1500s a Methuselah could be excused for having — if they had them then — a midlife crisis. After all, discovery that the earth wasn't the center of the universe would surely shake the very foundations of anyone's belief system. What can you trust if you can't believe your eyes, telling you the sun, moon, stars, go around the earth?

But in his very senior years, our one-thousand-year-old inhabitant could sit back in his recliner, click on the television, and watch the astronauts construct the international space station. He could dispense with the goose quill and now e-mail his friends— he probably would have quite a few!

Many significant changes. But something else was happening—something much more subtle, yet profoundly important. In the early years of this millennium, it was perfectly natural to think of "science" as coming forth from God as cause and creator, even if the prevailing views of God were largely anthropomorphic and the perception of His creation was fundamentally material. But a gradual transition was in motion. Some explorers began to examine and measure the universe by depending increasingly, and almost exclusively, on what their physical senses observed. This approach was considered a more empirical and more dependable view; gradually it came to build on the assumption that the only way to measure reality with certainty was from a matter-based approach, with no regard for a spiritual, divine cause.

Many observers may have felt that this transition to a more "dependable" science was complete by the end of this millennium. They might point to the highly systematized methods of physics, chemistry, biology, and to the effort to apply these methods in other fields—especially medicine, but also political science and the social sciences. In each of these cases, science was reality according to matter. Or was it? To an astute observer, as we approach the year 2000, cracks are appearing. Maybe matter-based science isn't monolithic after all. Media articles begin to suggest some kind of reconciliation between science and faith.

Some thoughtful people today would trace this reassessment of what science means back to the second half of the 1800s. Mary Baker Eddy wrote a book that was to become a bestseller through the rest of the millennium—a book that challenges the modern secularization of science. It was a book that introduced a leaven into society's view of science. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures does take full account of present-day assumptions about science, yet Mrs. Eddy concludes, "All Science is divine." ^{Science and Health, p. 126}

While people in earlier centuries may have acknowledged the divine nature of science, their perspective was often misplaced. Such science tended to define "spiritual" truths of the universe in material terms. When the Church accepted a universe with the earth at its center as divine truth, such "spiritual science" was destined for trouble.

Mrs. Eddy viewed Science as the true knowledge of God, but to her, real Science revealed a universe utterly devoid of matter—a universe of Spirit and spirituality. She recognized this truth as foundational to what Christ Jesus' life and healing ministry were trying to tell us. While others over the centuries since Jesus have glimpsed spiritual reality, no one made it practical to the degree that it was in the Master's life. That is, not until Mrs. Eddy's book came along to explain the Science of Jesus' life. Science and Health insists on a link between Science as God's perfect, spiritual reality and practical implications of this truth for daily life. It explains, "Science will declare God aright, and Christianity will demonstrate this declaration and its divine Principle, making mankind better physically, morally, and spiritually." ^{Ibid., p. 466}

Here was a powerful challenge pointed at the world's tendency to draw Science into the grasp of matter. At the same time, it was a ringing call for reinstatement of the kind of healing Jesus taught his disciples. Spiritual healing. True healing. Scientific healing. The very title of Mrs. Eddy's book draws together these two vital concepts: Science and health.

Science that's related to Christ—Christian Science—reveals how the power of Spirit overturns the discords of matter. In fact, it proves with consistency that the claims of matter must yield to the health and harmony of spirituality.

This concept of Science has everything to do with the practice of true healing. Such Science is based on Truth, reality, law. God's reality is good. The Bible is filled with examples of people whose lives were touched by the spiritual reality of good in a way that prevailed over the discords of a supposed material reality.

Consider the significance of Science based on spiritual law. Healing takes place when we apply the constancy of divine law to shifting, difficult events. Think, for example, of God's law of Love as the outcome of changeless, eternal Truth. Human events often seem vulnerable to a fluctuating love—or altogether void of love. And such lack can result in argument, stress, even disease. But Science shows us how to apply the divine law of perfect Love.

The application of God's law is not difficult or complex. You could begin with just a quiet, prayerful gratitude that the Bible reveals God as Love. It would be natural to acknowledge that Christ has come to show the ever-presence of this Love. Thoughtfully ponder the allness, the omnipotence, of Love. Rejoice in the uninterrupted continuity of Love. Because this is true, you'll begin to feel less doubt, less uncertainty or fear. As you cherish this reality of Love, it becomes more a part of your consciousness. In fact, it becomes a light within your thought, even a law to your thought.

Something scientific is happening in this approach to prayer. You begin to see reality more from the standpoint of this law of Love than from a frightened, matter-based view. By continuing to pray, humbly yielding to the allness of Love, gratefully accepting Love as the true substance of your being, the only reality, you find that something more is happening than a personal recitation of some statements. In a sense, Science is revealing and bringing forth a declaration of God as He truly is, as perfect Love, caring for and preserving all its creation. And the Christ, deeply present in your consciousness, is nurturing the demonstration, the practical healing effect, of such Science, or true knowledge of God. Science declaring God. Christianity demonstrating it. You bearing witness to this divinely impelled experience through prayer. You're catching a glimpse of the Psalmist's vision, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." ^{Ps. 119:18}

In the face of such "treatment," fear retreats. Divine Love grows in thought. The effects of fear, such as anger or disease, lose their appearance of reality. They are not scientific. They are not of God. They are alien to the perfect law of Love. They are darkness that fades as the light of God's reality grows brighter.

Christian Science brings healing through the Science of Christ, the Science that God reveals through Christ, Truth. This Science of healing doesn't change and shift over time, the way human theories in the "natural sciences" evolve. Jesus proved Science to be constant, dependable, certain. He lived it for his disciples and expected them to practice it as he did. Mrs. Eddy observes, "Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that ever trod the globe." ^{Science and Health, p. 313}

The world may have opposed this view of Science. It isn't easy for the human mind to relinquish its large-scale certainty that true knowledge must be empirical. It still largely asserts: "Surely science can only relate to what the physical senses tell us. After all, faith is based too much on superstition or the supernatural." But Science and Health counters, "The Science of God and man is no more supernatural than is the science of numbers, though departing from the realm of the physical, as the Science of God, Spirit, must, some may deny its right to the name of Science." Science and Health insists that this Science is provable, demonstrable. And the system of healing it teaches is daily proved by people around the globe. The passage continues, "The Principle of divine metaphysics is God; the practice of divine metaphysics is the utilization of the power of Truth over error; its rules demonstrate its Science." ^{Ibid., p. 111}

This "power of Truth over error" is illustrated in the tens of thousands of healings recorded in this Journal and its sister publications, the Christian Science Sentinel and The Herald of Christian Science. Healings have included medically diagnosed conditions of multiple sclerosis, blindness, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, heart conditions—almost an endless list, even including healings of that assumed incurable disease, the common cold.

I was once invited to visit informally with about a dozen doctors. They wanted to ask questions about this Science of Christianity. After we had talked for around fifteen minutes, one physician remarked enthusiastically that he felt we were both on the same path! We had been discussing the mental nature of experience. Yet, I had been talking about the sole reality and power of Mind (God). They were talking about what they considered to be the remarkable possibilities of mind (the human mentality).

When we finished about an hour later, I was deeply touched by a comment from my friend who had initially seen what he felt was common ground. With such a sense of humility, he said, "You know, we're not quite on the same path after all. Our paths may be somewhat parallel, but they're not the same. And I think it's going to be easier for us to come to you."

Theories in the realm of physics, chemistry, biology, usefully and gradually evolve in their observation and description of the physical universe. But Science itself is divine, absolute. It relates to the living and eternal God and is accessible to every individual on earth because every individual without exception can feel God's reality. His love and goodness. This feeling finally comes to light in each one's consciousness. Christ is bringing Science to light. There is certainty in what God knows, in this spiritual enlightenment. There is perfect law underpinning it. This Christly light heals because it is Christianly scientific.