In an article titled “Follow the Science?” New York Times columnist David Leonhardt observes, “Many people have come to believe that expert opinion is a unitary, omniscient force. That’s the assumption behind the phrases ‘follow the science’ and ‘what the science says.’ It imagines science almost as a god—Science—who could solve our dilemmas if we only listened” (February 11, 2022).
More than ever the world is crying out for a savior, a need many feel can be met only through trusting in physical science and material medicine. Yet doesn’t speaking of salvation and trust make this an issue of spiritual significance?
“The two largest words in the vocabulary of thought are ‘Christian’ and ‘Science,’ ” writes the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy. “The former is the highest style of man; the latter reveals and interprets God and man; . . . The life of Christ is the predicate and postulate of all that I teach, and there is but one standard statement, one rule, and one Principle for all scientific truth” (No and Yes, p. 10). In defining the origin of all scientific truth as God, perfect Principle, she explains that true Science must be a divine Science—grounded in the undeviating wisdom of divine Mind.
Since Eddy’s discovery of Christian Science over 150 years ago, its adherents have found Jesus’ promise practical and repeatable, that “these signs shall follow them that believe; . . . they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:17, 18). Tens of thousands of these signs have been given and continue to be through the practice of Christian Science.
Consider just three examples. My dad awoke one night to realize he was totally immobile. Through the prayers of a Christian Science practitioner, he found immediate release from the severe symptoms, and by morning had complete freedom of movement (see Ronald Frederick Warncke, Christian Science Sentinel, August 24, 1987). A stuntman, soon after being bitten by a deadly pit viper, was able to contact a practitioner thousands of miles away. The pain left him immediately, and all effects of the bite, including visible signs of blood poisoning, soon disappeared (Loren L. Janes, “It was a beautiful snake,” Christian Science Sentinel, June 17, 2002). A preschooler and her baby sister mistakenly drank from bottles of rodent poison. At the hospital, permanent damage or death was the prediction. Their parents drove them to a practitioner’s house and their complete recovery included enjoying a normal dinner back home that same night (Mardi van Winkle, “A pure antidote,” Christian Science Sentinel, December 10, 2001).
Such experiences typify Christ’s second coming at the threshold of humanity and provide definitive, hope-inspiring evidence of the ever-operative divine remedy of God’s perfect love. Because this Christ-power to heal is scientific, it is verifiable, reliable, and repeatable.
All Science must involve the application of discovered laws that are universal, demonstrable, and independent of human belief. But can it be said that physical science, which is always evolving, offers a knowledge of absolute truth? Dr. Naomi Oreskes of Harvard University shows in her book Why Trust Science? that the strength of modern science is essentially in its social fabric, in that scientific human knowledge is “fundamentally consensual” (p. 19). Thus, underlying any trust in physical science is trust in specialized opinions and human organizations.
This method of healing shows the connection between Science and health to be metaphysical.
Despite humanity’s most noble motives, this leaves physical science susceptible to ignorance, human fallibility, even malpractice.
It is no wonder Eddy first called her discovery “Moral Science,” for the human demonstrator of the Science of Christ must be a Christly transparency for the moral might of Truth and Love. “In order to cure his patient,” counseled Mary Baker Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “the metaphysician must first cast moral evils out of himself and thus attain the spiritual freedom which will enable him to cast physical evils out of his patient. . .” (p. 366).
Many fields of physical science have benefited mankind with useful inventions. Rocket science has literally lifted humanity away from Earth and put the moon under our feet. True advances in such fields compel humanity out of erroneous beliefs, such as when astronomy proved that the Earth orbits the sun and not the other way around. Eddy recognized that many of the natural sciences give evidence of metaphysics, or scientific laws, and guide humanity out of materiality. “Astronomy, optics, acoustics, and hydraulics are all at war with the testimony of the physical senses,” she says. “This fact intimates that the laws of Science are mental, not material; and Christian Science demonstrates this” (No and Yes, p. 6).
Science and Health specifically highlights why Christian Science is far more trustworthy than any human consensus: “Physical science (so-called) is human knowledge,—a law of mortal mind, a blind belief, a Samson shorn of his strength. When this human belief lacks organizations to support it, its foundations are gone. Having neither moral might, spiritual basis, nor holy Principle of its own, this belief mistakes effect for cause and seeks to find life and intelligence in matter, thus limiting Life and holding fast to discord and death” (p. 124).
On the other hand, Christian Science relies on the unerring, omniscient divine Mind, and invites the seeker of Truth to discover what God knows. Einstein expressed a desire to do so when he said, “I want to know how God created this world. . . . I want to know his thoughts” (The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, p. 324).
In discovering Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy left behind all conventional wisdom that says matter is the substance of life, including the traditional Christian view that God created matter. Her hunger for divine Truth, in-depth study of Scripture, and extraordinary healing experiences led her to the true Science of being, in which Spirit is substance, and all cause and effect are entirely mental.
Physical science, built on the supposition that temporal matter is the reality, inherently lacks the certainty of eternal, spiritual Truth—the Savior so needed by humanity. But aren’t we seeing evidence that humanity is reaching out for the true Science found in metaphysics? A recent cover of the magazine New Scientist, for example, posed the question: “Is consciousness fundamental to the cosmos? Rethinking the relationship between mind and matter” (April 2, 2022).
Jesus said the promised Comforter, the “Spirit of truth,” would judge “the spirit which rules this world” (see John 16:7–13, J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English). Christian Scientists understand this Comforter to be Divine Science, which separates out the eternal, spiritual ideas of divine Mind from the false, temporal perceptions of a supposed mind in matter, and so brings healing to human experience.
This method of healing shows the connection between Science and health to be metaphysical. This also reveals that any apparent success of material medicine or hygiene is the result of human belief putting faith in itself to heal through matter, thus attempting, even appearing, to usurp the absolute supremacy of Christ, Truth. This is “the ambiguous nature of all material health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-destructive, constituting a ‘kingdom divided against itself,’ which is ‘brought to desolation’ ” (Science and Health, p. 388).
Physical science becomes a false prophet when it attempts to give authority to physiology and material medicine by saying “trust the science” and then uses material knowledge to make predictions of spreading disease, declining health, or impending death, for man and even our Earth. “Which, then, are we to accept as legitimate and capable of producing the highest human good? We cannot obey both physiology and Spirit, for one absolutely destroys the other, and one or the other must be supreme in the affections” (Science and Health, p. 182).
Healing in Christian Science glorifies Spirit, even God’s allness, and is achievable, definitive, and therefore scientifically certain because it relies on no human belief, but entirely on the all-knowing divine Mind or fixed Principle. This Principle is divine Love—the true “unitary, omniscient force”—embracing, healing, and saving humanity.
We have an innate desire to trust Science. As the unfailing law of Love, which Jesus taught and proved, the Science of Christ or Christian Science is equipped with the promise of full fruition. Through its long healing record, both modern and biblical, it has proven—and by God’s perfect grace will definitively prove—it is the eternally true divine Science which is most worthy of our absolute trust.
