Among the many helpful ways of describing healing in Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy explains in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony” (p. 390). This essential point, that true spiritual healing follows from an increased awareness or understanding of God, is echoed in a testimony of healing found in the last chapter of Science and Health, titled “Fruitage.” (This testimony was written by Clara Brown Groves and originally published in the Journal of March 1906.) After this woman sought earnestly for a higher sense of God, her prayer was answered by an uplifting spiritual insight that sealed a life-transforming healing. She wrote, “From that hour I have had an intelligent consciousness of the ever-presence of an infinite God who is only good” (p. 669).
The new view of God this seeker gained was reflected in a new view of herself. She discovered that self-conceit, egotism, and selfishness were no part of her true identity. This simultaneous discovery should come as no surprise. The Bible tells us, “God created man in his own image … male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). Since man (meaning all men and women) is the image or reflection of God, it follows that a clearer idea of God must be reflected in a clearer idea of man.
How, then, do we gain this better understanding of God? A good place to start is the inspired Word, found in the Bible and its companion, the Christian Science textbook—the key to the Scriptures. In both of these books, God reveals His own nature to us. And both highlight the simple fact that God is not hidden away somewhere. “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord,” Jeremiah relates (23:24). One omnipresent God is here and now, but what we need in order to discern His presence is our spiritual sense, since God is not matter but Spirit.
