Human life can seem full of ups and downs, a menagerie of good days and bad days. But Christian Science brings to humanity an understanding of God as divine Principle and as never wavering in His goodness to man. This understanding can bring healing, peace, and stability to any situation.
Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, had a great love for mankind and a fervent desire to share what she had learned about God through many years of deep prayer and Bible study. One of the terms she uses to define God in her writings is Principle.
Although Principle is never used in the Bible as a term for God, the word refers to the lawmaking and law-enforcing omnipotence that the Bible attributes to Him. The psalmist knew the importance of God’s law, writing, “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day” (Psalms 119:97).
The source of that law is divine Principle.
Realizing that we are always under Principle’s governance helps dissolve fear and worry. Divinity is unchanging and never deviates from perfection; it is eternally good and always reliable. When we understand that we can never be separated from God, we feel the divine control of Principle bringing balance and order to our lives.
Jesus proved over and over again the all-encompassing authority of God, which destroys all inharmonious conditions, including sin and disease. This power is the Christ, the divine influence that corrects human thought, quieting fear and bringing restoration and healing. Christ, Truth, is always with us, assuring us of God’s complete and loving control of our lives. It settles mental upheaval and brings clarity to confused or stressed-out thoughts. It comforts and guides, showing us what to do and how to do it.
Jesus’ encouraging words “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) express the understanding of God as Principle, and of man – the true, spiritual identity of each of us – as the perfect creation of our perfect creator. When confronted with evidence that apparently contradicted this truth, Jesus lifted his – and others’ – thought to behold the allness of God, Spirit, proving that man’s true life is spiritual and divine, not mortal, because it’s created and governed by divine Principle.
When he met a man who had been born blind, Jesus showed him that he had inherited only God’s love and goodness. Asked by his disciples whose fault it was that the man was blind, Jesus replied, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:3). This understanding that man is wholly governed by the law of God restored the man’s sight.
Our true, spiritual selfhood cannot deviate from perfection. And this understanding heals disease, even sudden attacks. Once, I woke up in the early morning hours and found it extremely difficult to breathe; my throat had swollen almost shut. I woke up my wife and asked her to call a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me, while I went into my office to pray.
For a few weeks before this, I had been thinking a lot about God as divine Principle, and now the assurance “Principle governs me” came clearly to my thought. I opened my computer to an electronic concordance of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings and typed the words “Principle” and “governs” into the search bar. The results included this statement: “The divine Principle which governs the universe, including man, if demonstrated, is sufficient for all emergencies” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” p. 41). My fear immediately lessened. I felt the power and presence of God, and my breathing became easier.
As the day proceeded, the symptoms abated. They aggressively returned the next morning, but the power of that idea – that Principle is “sufficient for all emergencies” – had left its mark on my thought, and the symptoms quickly disappeared. In a very short while, they were gone for good.
Understanding God as Principle opens new vistas of understanding Him. God gives us a serene and permanent immunity from any suggestion of a power opposed to Him. The cure of disease and the destruction of even the most relentless material beliefs are assured under the all-harmonious control of Principle.
As the Christian Science textbook states, “There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 207).
Adapted from an editorial published in the Sept. 29, 2025, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.