Every reader of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, knows that its author, Mary Baker Eddy, opens it with a radical statement: “The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love” (p. 1). Absolute faith involves taking a stand for reality. We are talking about spiritual sense here.
Speaking of Christ Jesus in the textbook, Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being” (p. 41). To me, this involves more than faith and hope. And she confirms this when she explains, “Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality” (p. 298). Though spiritual sense includes intuition, it involves much more than having faith and hoping things will get relatively better tomorrow. Absolute faith involves taking a stand for spiritual reality.
Understanding and fruition are also included in spiritual sense. All who pray have some understanding of God. Believers can testify to God’s lovingkindness and may even attribute a healing to hopeful prayer. This is a real faith healing. Students and practitioners of the Science of being, however, are not practicing faith healing.
Absolute acknowledgment of present perfection—perfect God and perfect man—is reality, but Mrs. Eddy points out, “Unless you fully perceive that you are the child of God, hence perfect, you have no Principle to demonstrate and no rule for its demonstration” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 242).
Science and Health teaches its readers how to communicate with their Father-Mother God, and through this book they also learn what is expected of them and God in this relationship. Gradually, they also learn to trust the spiritual and Christianly scientific nature of reality. Mrs. Eddy is specific about this: “To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is” (Science and Health, p. 275).
Taking these steps prepares each individual to practice and to prove what it means to be a healer and how to follow Christ Jesus. The Master recognized his oneness with God. He didn’t pray, hoping to work his way up to being the expression of God; he was the complete expression of the Christ, and he knew it. That was his reality. So, to be like Jesus, at some point we must claim our Christliness. I remember well when I had to claim it for myself.
Some years ago I decided to trust what I knew to be intellectually and spiritually true about my oneness with God, even though the physical evidence did not support it. This was a major turning point in my spiritual growth.
I was in severe pain with a condition that can be described as
rheumatoid arthritis. My husband and I had just signed an agreement to purchase the house of our dreams. It had breathtaking woodland and waterfront views. We were to close on the purchase and move there in six weeks, when suddenly I became quite ill.
Absolute acknowledgment of present perfection—perfect God and perfect man—is reality.
At that point, breaking the contract didn’t occur to me because I didn’t expect to remain ill. I was used to quick results from prayer. But this time, I saw no such results. As weeks went by I spent much of my time in spiritual study and prayer. Life was going on but not easily. Discouragement set in, and I began to question whether I would be able to function in the new house with three staircase levels. At the time we were living in a house on one level, and my husband had to help me with even the most basic needs. I knew we could cancel the contract by claiming it would be impossible for me to climb the stairs, but my husband was expecting a complete healing for me. Inspired by his confidence in God, I kept on praying.
Each day, the Christian Science practitioner giving me treatment for this condition reminded me of my identity as God’s perfect, spiritual creation. But I was tempted to think this healing might be out of my reach. In this state of desperation, I realized I couldn’t pray the same way I had in the past.
I also realized that I was praying as if there were something I needed to get; something that was separate from me and that was seemingly unreachable. But the practitioner continued to remind me of Jesus’ promise that I would know the truth and that knowing would set me free (see John 8:32).
Suddenly, I made the connection. The truth Jesus spoke of had, in essence, the same source as “the scientific statement of being” I was studying (see Science and Health, p. 468). Truth, I realized, is knowing me as I really am—as God, Truth, created me. Truth identified me as Mind’s infinite manifestation.
I already had infinite good within me! In that moment everything changed. I began to think out from that Mind where there is only good, instead of hoping to reach up to it someday. I recognized reality to be the oneness of “infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation” (p. 468). And when I stopped thinking of my identity as separate from my spiritual nature, I was free.
In spite of what the physical senses presented, I claimed my spiritual nature as the present expression of Spirit’s perfection. Some might call that a huge leap of faith, but it went beyond faith. In order to heal the way Jesus healed, I needed to recognize divine perfection as the already omnipresent reality, just as he did.
When I absolutely acknowledged present perfection and claimed it as my own, I was free—and I knew it. Even though the physical evidence of this condition was still observable, it could no longer control me. The pain was still there, but I took my stand for reality. I had risen above the pain and accepted a whole new concept of my spiritual identity.
We closed on the house and joyously moved in. It wasn’t long before I could climb those stairs effortlessly, and the pain was all gone. The decision to trust Truth regardless of the physical evidence was a giant step forward for which I will forever be grateful.
I have cherished this experience as concrete proof that when we take the scientific stand where Spirit reigns, there is no sickness to heal, and any lingering appearance must disappear. Since then, we have enjoyed living in three other very interesting houses, all with staircases.
I may not have realized it then, but when I took a scientific stand for spiritual reality and accepted my oneness with God as His idea, I was seeing myself the way Christ Jesus saw himself, as one with the Father. With this correct view I knew I could heal sickness, and I consciously saw myself as a practicing Christian Scientist.
When we consciously and continually recognize that there is no separation between our humanity and Divinity, we are taking a stand for reality. As we acknowledge the reality that all good is of God, we will feel the divine Omnipresence with us.
