Faith Vs. Doubt

MOST people are familiar with the story of Peter’s attempt to walk on the water, but the Master’s gentle rebuke for his failure to continue doing so, is of special interest to Christian Scientists. Jesus said to Peter, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” There are perhaps very few if any of us, who, even if bidden by the Master himself, as Peter was, to come to him on the water, would attempt to do so without considerable feeling of doubt. There are also very few who would attempt to put into practice, with any hope of success, the words of Jesus, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” These words were uttered to the disciples when they asked for an explanation of their failure to heal a lunatic, and we, like they, seek to know why we ever fail to carry out an earnest desire to heal a disease, or it may be to change a discordant circumstance.

As Christians we believe the words of Jesus to be absolutely true; as Christian Scientists we know that the immutable, perfect law of God can bring about the desired result as a natural outcome of that law and not as a miracle, but as mortals we find that the result does not always appear. Why is this so when we ask only for what we believe to be good, when we do all we can to increase our faith, but still we do not achieve the result? Why did Peter fail? Where was his faith weak? Peter did not doubt Jesus’ word or power. He had just seen Jesus himself walking on the sea, and had received the command “Come” direct from the Master himself; therefore there was every reason, humanly speaking, why he should not entertain the doubt which was evidently responsible for his failure.

Peter’s first thought, doubtless, when he essayed to carry out the command, was one of implicit faith in Jesus, and consequently he “walked on the water,” but when he took in the evidence of the senses, “when he saw wind boisterous, he was afraid.” Why was he afraid? Here again he should still have had faith, for he had himself proved that he could walk on the water, and his faith should have been strengthened, not diminished. It is very likely that he was afraid because the thought which he unwittingly allowed to dominate his consciousness was not based on the Principle of being, but was derived from the evidence of his physical senses; and this evidence ousted the thought of faith in God, and put on one side the divine law under which Jesus was safe a few yards away from Peter. In reality Peter was under the same law, but had no faith in it. His faith immediately reverted to the so-called law of nature, and his sinking was the outward expression of his belief that material law was the true law; every thought in Peter’s consciousness being that this action was performed under the guidance of asserted laws, the belief in which had been ingrained into him since he first began to think at all.

In Science and Health (p. 545) Mrs. Eddy says, notion of a material universe is utterly opposed to the theory of man as evolved from Mind. Such fundamental errors send falsity into all human doctrines and conclusions, and do not accord infinity to Deity.” Had Peter, from the time he first began to think, started with the premise that “all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation” (Science and Health, p. 468), his experience during the years which preceded this incident would have so altered his conclusions as to what result would follow a certain action or set of actions, that walking on the water would have seemed as natural to him as it did to Jesus. His faith would then have been in the divine law instead of in the so-called law of matter mistakenly believed to be a law of God.

Peter’s physical senses witnessed to the fact that Jesus could walk on the water, and also that he himself could do so, but he concluded that this was due to Jesus’ miraculous power, not that it was in accordance with the laws of omnipotent Principle. Hence the failure; it was not doubt of Jesus’ word which caused him to sink, but belief in a law other than the true law of Life and its spiritual processes. So it is to-day with mortals who try to move the mountains and even the mole-hills of daily life; they meet them with a belief in God’s word and God’s but with a yet stronger belief in the action of material law. To gain a faith which will not fail to perform works, we must start by learning anew the true laws which govern the universe and man, and apply them day by day to every detail of life, until this application gives us a new set of results from which we shall form our conclusions of the facts of Life eternal as it is here and now; and these conclusions will be the ones which will present themselves to our consciousness immediately a thought is called up, in place of the conclusions deduced from the premise of belief in life in matter, and they will guide our actions accordingly.

The demonstrations which we are called upon to make are much more frequently to be made by faith based on knowledge gained by living our understanding of eternal Life, than by one great act of faith in the omnipotence and love of God. Every application of divine law to our actions, whether small or great, will add to our faith, and by degrees we shall be able to demonstrate that “nothing is impossible” unto us, and we shall reap the full benefit of the promise, “All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”