Nor does anyone know why light of a certain wavelength looks red to most people; nor have we any idea whether it looks as reddish to Smith as it does to Jones. Newton said he did not know what gravity was, and doubted if anyone would ever know, because he regarded force at a distance as absurd. Nor have we any idea why an act of will should set the limbs in motion, but it does. If mental states are part of the organism pervading it to its extremity, then it is understandable that it should be so, even if we do not understand why. And that may be as far as we can take it.
Christ may have been right that faith like a grain of mustard seed can remove a tree or a mountain; but the probability is he was using an extravagant metaphor. Nevertheless it raises the question why we seem incapable of repeating his healings, if they really happened? Especially when he seems to have thought we should do better than him? If “healing” can take place at all, it is a gift. Why so few people in the Church with this gift? There are perhaps 40,000 registered healers in this country; some of them gifted, some of them charlatans, no doubt. Why so little talent in the Church? Perhaps they would misuse it, as the Church misused its power so often in the past.
If a man believes the spirit of Healing dwells in himself, how long will this spirit remain, or how long will the belief last, if he does not try to share it with others? In other words, if a man realizes he has this spirit, there is a compulsion to use it, and dedicate his life to using it for others. Not many people want to dedicate themselves like that. It would be difficult to use it, and lead an ordinary life. But I do not think the most pressing change needed in the Church is to try to recover Jesus’ ability to heal, though it would give an added authority to those much in need of it. The most pressing need is to make the Gospel of Christ embrace the secular world, and to get rid of the idea that anyone pursuing a secular vocation is serving “mammon”, which is a false accusation. Get rid too of the insincere penitence for sins never committed, or only committed because one is too dead-tired to fulfil all the public duties and family duties that make conflicting calls on one’s energy. I see no other way for Church men and women to become once again confident and competent as they go about their daily affairs, freed from the debilitating demands of a dying Church which is harnessed to an unreal world, or a world which no longer exists. This leads on to the idea of trying to recreate between humans a replica of the relationship or indwelling that is supposed to exist between God and the soul. This is the entire theme of my book: Man’s Relationship with God published by the Edwin Mellen Press. Anyone interested in going further, should read it.