Article March 16, 1918 Issue

Perfection

JOHN M. DEAN

The possibility of the attainment of perfection is a vital question which has never been settled and cannot be settled outside of the spiritual understanding of God and man as gained in Christian Science. This is because all other systems of religious thought approach the subject from a more or less material basis. Such an attitude at once precludes any rational solution of the problem, for when man is considered as so much blood, bone, and muscle, it is no wonder that his perfectibility has come to be regarded as a Utopian dream, impossible of attainment; and yet the command of the master Christian, "Be ye therefore perfect," stands unabridged and unabated.

On page 414 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says, "Remember that man's perfection is real and unimpeachable, whereas imperfection is blameworthy, unreal, and is not brought about by divine Love." The Bible, indeed, plainly indicates that only the perfect can inherit perfection, so there can be no escaping the conclusion that heaven cannot be gained except as the realization of perfection is reached. This, however, is an individual process in which each man makes his own heaven or hell according as he deserves reward or punishment, and because of this the individual finds no satisfaction or justification in waiting for all mankind to make this final demonstration simultaneously.

God never made a law or inspired a command impossible of fulfillment. To believe Him capable of such a thing is to charge Him with being unjust to His own children. It must then be true that, since according to the Scripture "God is no respecter of persons," every command and promise in the Bible was meant for all men in all time, and therefore for us to-day. To be deluded into believing otherwise is to dig a pit for oneself, and is to say that God is omnipotent at one time and impotent at another, as if omnipotence could ever be less than omnipotent. That which is all-power now must always have been all-power and must always be all-power. How, then, can any Christian question that positive statement of Jesus, "With God all things are possible"?

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