The value of reasoning from a spiritual basis
Most people use logical reasoning at some point in their day to make decisions as well as to plan and organize their activities. Logic implies correct reasoning from principles that are accepted to be true.
The Bible gives us examples of reasoning from a spiritual basis. The book of John starts with the basic spiritual fact that “all things were made by [God]” (1:3). Later in the same Gospel, Jesus states, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (4:24) and explains his spiritual nature when he says, “I and my Father are one” (10:30).
To me, Jesus is presenting this reasoning: God is Spirit and made all things; therefore, God’s offspring must be spiritual, like Him. It’s a package deal, you might say.
How does that apply to our lives? Since all things were made by God, Spirit, you and I and everyone must have been made by Spirit. Therefore, we are spiritual creations or ideas, and the source of ideas is God, divine Mind.
In Christian Science, we reason from the basis of Mind being the only intelligence. So if a thought isn’t logical to divine Mind, it is not based in fact or reality. Mary Baker Eddy states in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” “God could never impart an element of evil, and man possesses nothing which he has not derived from God” (p. 539). This indicates that illness is illogical because it couldn’t come from perfect, divine Mind.
Jesus proved this through healing the body. And Mrs. Eddy, a faithful follower of Jesus, discovered Christian Science, which explains that sickness, being impossible in the spiritual universe of infinite Mind, not only is illogical but actually has no place, no creator, no reality. Therefore, when sickness comes into our experience, we can remain unmoved. We can persistently contend for what divine logic tells us – that because God, good, made all, we reflect God in our spiritual identity, which must be good.
My husband and I prayed in this way recently when our 16-year-old granddaughter texted us. Saying that she felt really awful and had a high fever, she asked if we would pray for her. We stopped our other activities and took some quiet time to pray, acknowledging how God was seeing our granddaughter.
In my prayers, I followed the same reasoning mentioned above: God, good, is Spirit and made all; therefore, God made our granddaughter and made her spiritual and good. So she naturally expresses the spiritual qualities of health, balance, peace, and perfection. She coexists with Spirit as Spirit’s idea. There could be no separation between well-being and our granddaughter.
My husband and I prayed along these lines until we both felt a sure sense of peace. We were very grateful when our granddaughter let us know later that evening that she was doing better and reported the next day that she was normal.
Health, purity, divine energy, and well-being are attributes of Love and must be reflected by each of Love’s ideas. As my husband and I deeply grasped this sound reasoning and allowed it to change our perspective, we saw the bigger picture of Love’s loveliness and allness, and it was exhibited in our granddaughter’s quick healing.
But what if the premise of our logic is incorrect? We might be thinking that evil exists and is real. But the Bible makes clear that good alone has always existed and constitutes creation, as it starts right out with the declaration that God made everything and made it good (see Genesis 1:31).
That deep-seated truth might be hard to accept when we watch the news or try to get along with a difficult neighbor. But opposite states cannot exist in the same place. If light is present, darkness must not be. The understanding of the real, the actual, displaces the appearance of anything unreal until only the real remains.
Mrs. Eddy writes, “Christian Science reveals God and His idea as the All and Only. It declares that evil is the absence of good; whereas, good is God ever-present, and therefore evil is unreal and good is all that is real” (“Retrospection and Introspection,” p. 60).
An all-good, loving Father-Mother God does not send or allow anything unlike Himself any more than light can send or allow darkness. The Bible proclaims this, and divine logic proves it to be true.
Adapted from an article published in the May 8, 2023, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
