Article January 2, 1995 Issue

Potential and progress

Robert Dennison Wright

Who doesn't want to progress? In spite of roadblocks, we still cherish a desire to develop, to fulfill our loftiest aspirations. As we understand the spiritual basis of man's potential, we can do just that.

A key to understanding our potential is the fact that, as God's spiritual image and likeness, man is already complete. God, the one, creative Mind, doesn't hatch us as some embryo idea and gradually add to us until we're all there. We do make step-by-step progress humanly, but such progress is actually evidence of the eternal unfoldment, or opening out into view, of man's spiritual completeness and perfection.

In Science and Health Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes: "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis" (p. 258). But does development mean getting better from some limited beginning? No, man doesn't start from finite beginnings. Indeed, man in the image of God, eternal Life, doesn't start at all, but has always existed as the complete reflection of God. Spiritual development must involve the revealing to human thought of what is already there. God is forever expressing in man the divine nature. Human progress needs to be built on the rock of this relation of God and man. There's no need to feel that we don't have much ability or that life has dealt us a bad hand. There's no call for thrashing about in a willful attempt to "make it." Instead, we can grow in the understanding of our relation to the divine Mind, which is our source and the source of all ideas.

Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.

Send a comment to the editors
NEXT IN THIS ISSUE
Poem
Problem solving
January 2, 1995
Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit