Article February 7, 1942 Issue

"Unfoldment, not accretion"

ELOISE PATTILLO HENDRICK

Demonstration , as understood in Christian Science, is the proof of what God is and what He does for man; it is the rich fruition which confirms the heavenly conviction of God's goodness.

Individuals occasionally employ the term "demonstration" loosely and incorrectly, not realizing how progress may be thus restricted and thought materialized. It is exceedingly important to comprehend clearly the nature of demonstration. The utilization by the individual of the facts concerning God and man, the facts of His infinite perfection and all-inclusive government and man's expression of the divine attributes, is followed inevitably by manifold signs—health, abundance, peace, and life; but it is never true that one can "demonstrate" material things—a house, a position, a friend, and so forth. Such possessions may well appear, and do appear as far as need be, as the student advances in Christian Science, but the fact remains that they are incidental to his progress and only illustrate progressively to human sense the goodness of real being. One demonstrates not material things but spiritual truth.

"Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion; it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind, but an impartation of the divine Mind to man and the universe," Mary Baker Eddy has stated on page 68 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Evidences of goodness and spiritual progress appearing in human experience represent the orderly, natural, and inevitable unfoldment of God's plan for man. Unfoldment is spiritual, pointing to the completeness and fullness which characterize God's creation; accretion is temporal and material. Truth is continuously unfolding itself to man, revealing the infinitude and variety of all His ideas, which are ever inseparable from Him. Accretion implies that something external needs to be added to God's likeness or to His universe. But God's man already possesses all reality, all good. What human belief sometimes deems progress may amount to accretion through human will, or as the result of another's vicarious efforts, whereas true growth is spiritually sought and won by the individual. There are, in Christian Science, those legitimate instances of healing that come to one through another's prayerful realization of Truth, but ultimately salvation from all error is individually realized.

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