Editorial August 14, 1909 Issue

ABILITY AND AVAILABILITY

John B. Willis

In no respect does Christian Science more certainly remold human thought than in its teaching respecting the range and compass of man's capabilities. The realization that he is indissolubly linked to God, and that therefore in Christ all things are his, as Paul avers, gives a sense of the possibilities of individual achievement which makes even the Master's statement, "The works that I do shall he do also," seem a mere matter of course. Jesus was ever trying to awaken his disciples to the recognition of their unmeasured freedom to be and to do when quickened and impelled by a right sense of God and of man in His likeness. Speaking for the coming of this inspiring Christ-idea, he said to them, "I give unto you power ... over all the power of the enemy." Their apprehension of Truth was not to remain a mere perception of ability, but to become an inspiring consciousness of availability which should be commensurate with the demands of every human exigency and need.

The distinction between ability and availability is clear, its apprehension exceedingly important. One means capacity, the other effectiveness. One is latent potentiality, the other dynamic enery. One is the engine complete but cold; the other is the same engine with a blazing furnace and ready for its work. One is the acquirement of the academician who is in possession of all the facts and of the law of their relations, the other is the mastery of the man of affairs who is translating expert information into beneficent accomplishment. One is the knowledge gained through the perception of truth, the other this knowledge plus wisdom, the tact and technique essential to the demonstration of truth under human conditions.

With a daring which expressed his fully-tested understanding of God and of the day's demand, Paul said, "I can do all things Christ which strengtheneth me." In his life ability was proven and glorified in availability, and when we remember how largely professed Christians as a body are found wanting in this respect today, we are impelled to say that the absence of this characteristic of Christ Jesus and his early disciples constitutes the greatest sin of the modern saint.

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