It’s crucial to challenge the world’s common perception that disease is an inevitable part of one’s experience. Because God is Love and Truth, as the Bible tells us, He could never sanction the unloveliness and pain of disease.
Christian Science explains that everything we see, including disease, is a mental phenomenon, or thought objectified. To the human mind, it is a radical notion that what appears as disease is, actually, thought. But the fact that Christian Science proves disease to be erroneous thought objectified on the body opens up new possibilities of understanding and healing.
This thought-provoking perspective raises the question: Can we truly change matter-based thoughts of disease, lack, or fear and accept the spiritual conviction of God’s omnipotence and omnipresence?
Let’s start out by considering the truth that God, the Mind who is Love, is the source and substance of our true being, and that Godlike thinking can be made known in a tangible way in our experience. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, “Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 269). Our prayer establishes in our consciousness that in truth, we are each composed only of God’s all-harmonious thoughts.
Christ Jesus exemplified this in his healing ministry. When presented with a paralyzed man, for example, he addressed the man’s thinking, saying, “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” Then he addressed the thoughts of the scribes around him, asking, “Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house” (Matthew 9:2, 5, 6).
Both the concept of sinning – thinking separately from God, good – and the physical concept of palsy were the same to Jesus. What appeared as paralysis was actually a false belief – an erroneous thought that did not come from divine Love. Therefore, Jesus identified the problem as a false representation of God’s creation – and replaced the wrong concept with the true, Christlike understanding of God’s child as sinless and perfect. This resulted in what we call healing, or the presence of health being more clearly seen.
Not only did Jesus understand things as thoughts, but he knew that the spiritual thoughts of God are made evident in our experience. Qualities of God such as life, strength, and freedom of movement are expressed in useful forms. Jesus viewed thought as substance. As we understand this, healing occurs.
According to the Bible, there is no God, or Mind, besides the Lord. It follows that there can be no reality in material thinking or imperfection. Matter-based or worldly thinking stems from the suggestion of a mind separate from God. But as there is but one Mind, one God, one intelligence, there is no room for another mind. Therefore, ungodlike thoughts – thoughts separate from or opposed to God – have no creator, no true originator, no developer, and no power or law behind them. They can be dismissed.
If presented with a physical challenge, we start, not with the problem, but with what God knows. As His spiritual, useful, perfect ideas abide more convincingly in our consciousness, our experience is more clearly seen as Godlike. The scene shifts to a more enlightened perspective, and this is evidenced in healing.
One summer, our son took an awkward fall on the trampoline and appeared to injure his arm. I immediately began to pray. I knew that his true selfhood was spiritual, unmarred, and safe as an idea of Spirit, untouched by injury.
An X-ray revealed that the arm had been broken in three places but that it was healing nicely. The doctor did not need to set the bone; everything was in its right place. He just put the arm in a sling.
As a family, we endeavored to translate things into thoughts. We knew that the thoughts of God, good, were the reality, and this was evidenced in our son having less and less discomfort and more and more flexibility in his arm. After a couple of weeks he was completely healed and back playing basketball with his dad. God’s thoughts were apprehended more clearly than previously, and the unbroken perfection of man was revealed.
When we accept the thoughts of divine Mind, we then can see them manifested in our experience, as Christ Jesus demonstrated so fully and flawlessly throughout his career. By embracing this spiritual perspective, individuals can increasingly replace material beliefs with spiritual understanding and so experience more of the harmony of divine Mind, divine Love, in their daily living.
Adapted from an article published in the October 2025 issue of The Christian Science Journal.
