FAITH TEACHING THEORY OF CURE CHAPTER 7

THEORY OF CURE CHAPTER 7

When sick, how do we get well?

THEORY OF CURE
The theory of illness sets up the theory of cure. Rychlak’s sixth question is “How is cure effected.” If you accept that your problem is that your body and mind have fallen under the curse, and that your sense knowledge has taken control of your whole psychological system, and if you add that faith can break that hold and make you eligible for your cure, then the answer to cure becomes self-evident.

To begin with, the problem is that when sense knowledge has a dominance over the system, the God type of faith becomes impossible. As Kenyon points out, sense knowledge gives us aa type of faith built upon our experience that is hard to break. Faith reveals to us that we can be healed. At the same time, sense knowledge built on information coming from within and without can tell us that we cannot.

So, Paul talks of the necessity of renewing of the mind. Even if we are in pain, there is access to higher knowing that co-opts the lower sense knowledge. Faith teachers found that the best way to renew the mind was with the Scriptures–God’s Revelation.

Renewing of the mind can go on in two ways. One is a natural way much like the teaching of modern cognitive theorists with their teaching on “cognitive restructuring”: The other renewing of the mind is more supernatural.

Hagin (1978) explains the cognitive way like this: “When the mind has been renewed with the Word of God, the soul can take sides with the spirit because it now knows what God says.” (p.11). In other words, even though you are in a situation that seems impossible and your body, part of your mind, and the medical people are confirming it, there is a part of you that knows a higher truth. Thus, the sense type faith can’t totally dominate. Then God’s Spirit through man’s spirit can get control.

A similar insight into cure was discovered by Freud when he wrote something to the effect that “Where id was, there must ego illuminate.” In Freud’s case ego (soul) must become aware of the id and id must relinquish its grip. In the Faith Teaching, if the soul can entertain the possibility of a higher power due to its saturation in the written revelation, it will loosen its grip on the psychological system and let the spirit do its faith work.

Besides this cognitive function of the Word’ ability to break the hold of sense knowledge type of faith, Faith teachers also discovered in the Word, a form of life force in and of itself. There is mind renewing power in the Word. St. John teaches us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In John 17:17 “Make them holy--consecrated--with the truth; Your word is consecrating truth.” Kenyon (1966) writes: “Just as Sense Knowledge is developed by reading Sense Knowledge literature, so the spirit grows by reading and meditating in the Revelation that was designed to be its food.” (p. 16)
Building on Paul’s statement in Romans 10:17–“faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God” Capps explains how the process works. “Take the Word which is filled with Spirit power, the power of God, and speak that Word. Then that Spirit life in that Word gets inside of you because your voice is picked up by your inner ear and fed directly into the human spirit.

Faith that breaks the curse is now possible.