SPIRITUAL HEALING
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]- SIR,—In his article on Spiritual Healing appearing in your issue of April 28th, the Rev. E. N. Porter Goff has made the unreserved statement that " Jesus always treated sickness and disease as being symptoms of sin." That disease is frequently and obviously a symptom of sin few will be disposed to question, and from this observation the Jews deduced the conclusion that there is a necessary nexus between them. This belief in a necessary nexus between sin and suffering gave rise to the problem which is debated in the great drama of Job, and to those questionings as to the goodness and justice of God which are reflected in the Book of Psalms. Men could not shut their eyes to the comple- mentary fact that suffering is often the wage of virtue as well as of sin. That problem Christ resolved by His refusal " always" to treat sickness and disease as a symptom of sin. He broke down the idea of a necessary nexus between suffering and sin. In the Johannine narrative of the case of the man born blind He rejected the theory of " the Jews " which would explain his blindness as the symptom of either personal or hereditary sin. He suggested that the ultimate explanation was to be found in a deeper region of experience. When the tower of Siloam fell Christ rejected the facile explanation of current .Jewish thought which inferred the sinfulness of the victims. I cannot therefore but feel that Mr. Goff has made too wide a generalization.—Yours, &c.,
G. A. ClIAMBERLAIN.
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