Great Construction

Recovery is Sufficient

     Religions are wrong to engage in healing disease is an assertion we often hear from the intellectual classes these days. It is taken as a matter of course that religion is salvation of a spiritual or mental nature and that disease is to be treated by doctors. Therefore, healing by religion is an invasion of the domain of science and most inappropriate. Such thinking may seem sensible on first hearing, but upon careful consideration, there are points on which I cannot agree. It is only inevitable that religion breaks into the domain of science as otherwise cannot be saved the peoples of the world since medical treatment is not able to do so. That medical science is so impotent is something I want readers to consider. Religions today as well have almost no power to heal. As proof, it is clear as can be seen that, apart from World Messianity, religions at present without exception operate their own hospitals. They do so because the nature of religions today is to try to provide some form of mental or spiritual comfort. That concept has become what religion is considered to be, so when a religion like World Messianity comes along that is seen as a religion concerned primarily with healing, it is thought to be somehow mistaken. There is a fallacy in considering healing and religion to be separate as previously mentioned, but is it not enough that the disease is completely healed and the patient recovers? Those very people who avert their eyes from these facts and make declarations about this and that are entrapped in a narrow-minded view that impedes the advance of civilization.
     The true purpose of religion naturally is to save human beings from misfortune and provide happiness. Religion has no other goal. For religion to fulfill its true aim, relying upon only the spiritual is insufficient. The physical must also be saved. True salvation is the making healthy of the spiritual and the physical. Because a religion with such power did not appear until now, however, religion left the suffering from disease alone as it is, and unavoidably as a secondary measure, strove to provide salvation on the spiritual level. Methods to encourage spiritual salvation were causing a separation of attachment to life, teaching resignation, and bringing about satori, which is what religions came to be known for, so religions have only been salvation of the spirit, which is only halfway. The approach of World Messianity, however, differs completely. The physical is saved as well, so healing disease is primary. And thus, the results of World Messianity’s healing are so wonderful, they cannot be compared to those of medical science. Patients are returned to health, obtain literally peace of mind, and live lives in joy. Therefore, to those who say they regard World Messianity as specializing in healing the sick, I am satisfied to say that yes, healing the sick is true salvation! Because, needless to say, once an individual becomes healthy, the causes of all other misfortunes are eliminated. Therefore, even when a religion provides for other aspects, if the most significant aspect, that of disease is not resolved, I do not think it has the right to call itself a religion. I often hear of individuals who are members of such-and-such religion and also suffering from disease that are quite satisfied to say that they have been saved, but this way of thinking is pathetic. Even if such individuals are happy with their attitudes, the mental and economic anguish of family members and relatives is great. Invalids who are continually dealing with this situation, as well, have no reason from the bottom of their hearts to be satisfied with such a situation. They have not been truly saved.
     When discussing the meaning of true salvation, think carefully about this fundamental issue: did science create human beings or did God create human beings? Of course, even scientists will probably not say that science created human beings. Most likely, there is no opposition to saying that God created human beings. In that case, it is more than obvious that if human beings had been created by science, that in the case of damage, science should repair human beings, but, if human beings were created by God, there is no other way than to have repairs and mending attended to by God. Why the fact that God and not human beings should heal other human beings has not been understood until the present is easy to explain. It is only a matter that science is visible to the human eye and that God is not, an extremely shallow way of thinking. The reasoning that holds that diseases that cannot be healed by science can be healed by religion is not believed in the intellectual classes. We, however, are the reverse. We think it no mystery that it is only natural that religion heals disease, and indeed would think it a great miracle if science did. In even more simple terms, if medical science could heal disease, the families of doctors should be healthier than members of the general public and doctors themselves should far outlive everyone else. I would like to ask, though, why it is a fact that doctors and the members of their families differ in no way from the general public. Another question is to ask do drugs truly heal disease. We can only guess at how much medicines have been poured into the bodies of human beings over the many generations, and with all the new medicines being produced these days, with all the medicines taken orally as well as those injected by the needle into the body, sick people should disappear, and thus with doctors and pharmacists becoming unable to earn a living, these professions should disappear. What are the facts, though? The sick continue to increase, complaints can be heard that there are too many villages without doctors, the hospitals are full, and sanatoriums do not have enough beds. There certainly should be no excuses for the ironical fact that in the advertising sections of the newspapers, the greatest number of advertisements are of those for new medicines.
     I have discussed here the relationship between medical science and religion, but the point is that there would be no problem, that is, the issue should never have to arise, if medical science could effect cures and recoveries.

Eikô, Issue 200, March 18, 1953
 translation by cynndd