Article August 15, 1994 Issue

Unlimited demand chasing after limited resources?

Julio C. Rivas T.

With the United States' deficit so large, hunger in Africa so rampant, third-world countries mired in poverty and debt, and cycles of inflation and recession remaining stubborn around the world, deep thinkers need to question the validity of current economic ideas and practices. If we look closely, we uncover a fabric of materialistic concepts holding them together. For real world progress to occur, it is essential that such materialism be reversed with more and more spiritual understanding.

Take for example the two basic assumptions of modern economics. I have found them disturbing since my days of undergraduate and graduate studies on the subject. The first assumption is that there is unlimited demand chasing after limited resources, and the second is that man is basically a selfish and self-interested mortal. Both assumptions are grounded in a matter-based concept of God, man, and the universe.

The teachings of Christian Science specifically negate the false, material concepts of limited resources and of man as a selfish mortal who needs to sweat and toil. Speaking of God, Mrs. Eddy explains in her book Science and Health, "Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul" (p. 60). And on another page in this book she writes, "In the scientific relation of God to man, we find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes,—Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply" (p. 206).