Modern Religious Cults and MovementsAtkins, Gaius Glenn
Religion
Modern Religious Cults and Movements
Atkins, Gaius Glenn
Christian Science; New Thought; Religion; Spiritual healing
Now since mental attitudes so react upon bodily states, whatever
strongly controls mental attitudes becomes a very great factor in
mental healing. There is a long line of testimony that what may be
called the complex of faith does just this with unique power, for faith
implies supernatural intervention. If there be anywhere an
all-prevailing power whose word is law and we could really be persuaded
that such a power had really intervened--even if it actually had not--on
our behalf and brought its supernatural resource to bear upon our
troubled case, then we should have a confidence more potent in the
immediate transformation of mental attitudes than anything else we could
possibly conceive. If we really believed such a power were ready to help
us, if we as vividly expected its immediate help, then we might
anticipate the utmost possible therapeutic reaction of mind upon body. A
faith so called into action should produce arresting results, and this
as a matter of investigation is true.
In following through the theories of faith healing we may take here
either of two lines. The devout may assert a direct divine
interposition. God is. He has the power and the will; all things are
plastic to His touch; He asks only faith and, given faith enough, the
thing is done and there is no explaining it. Those who believe this are
not inclined to reason about it; in fact it is beyond reason save as
reason posits a God who is equal to such a process and an order in which
such results can be secured. This is rather an achievement of faith than
reason but the Christian Church generally has held such a faith--a faith
sustained by the testimony which favours it and unaffected by the
testimony which challenges it. The scientific temper which seeks
economy in all its explanations and asks only for a cause sufficient for
the effect and which is, moreover, constantly trying to relate the
unknown to the known, takes another line and finds in faith healing just
one more illustration of the power of mind over body. This does not
exclude God but it discovers Him in resident forces and finds in law the
revelation of His method. The conclusions, then, to which we are
generally coming may not only be reconciled with a devout faith, they
may, when followed through, enrich faith; but they do subdue the whole
great matter to a sequence of cause and effect and they are gradually
finding a satisfactory explanation for what has heretofore been deeply
involved in mystery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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