Q. Christian Science marks its difference with other Christian healing movements by saying Christian Science healing is spiritual understanding not faith healing. How can one know if a healing is a faith healing or a healing resulting from understanding?
—A reader in Geneva, Switerland
A. First of all, it is important to remember that Christian Science does not take away faith from Christianity’s teaching. In her writings, Mary Baker Eddy mentions faith many times, and she points out that we should have the right kind of faith, that is, faith in what is spiritually true. For instance, consider this passage in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “When we come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error” (Mary Baker Eddy, p. 368). Here she encourages us to have more faith, and she says that this faith results in healing, provided it rests in the truth of being, in Spirit, in God.
Through our study of Christian Science, we grasp a deeper knowledge of what the truth of being is. We gain a better concept of God, Spirit, and a better apprehension of what living means. Thus, faith becomes spiritual understanding, and this is the acme of faith because it is no longer merely a belief in something unknown. It’s easier to have faith in something we understand, and so we can have more faith.
