Solving the big ones

Is a problem ever so big it can't be solved? The answer depends on what we think human existence is, how we think we got where we are, and where we think we're going.

If we believe that progress comes as human beings get cleverer or just learn to work better together; that nations, businesses, or individuals are successful only to the extent they manifest human cleverness and cooperation, then mankind's big problems -- war, energy short- ages, inflation, disease, pollution , and so forth -- may be with us for a long time. Real progress can only come as we learn to put off Paul's "old man" -- the carnal mind -- and "put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." n1

n1 Ephesians 4:24;

The carnal mind (the belief that intelligence comes out of a limited material body) would convince us that heaven -- or at least a harmonious solution to the problems this mind sees -- is always just ahead. All that is needed is a little more cleverness on the part of a few more minds, a little more cooperation from those blithely marching to different drummers, and presto! -- mankind progresses. But each little mind has its own language, its own way of conveying and responding to what it believes intelligence is. One speaks the language of business opportunity; others the languages of conservation, economics, advanced technology, medicine, human rights. Each briskly contributes its own little programs, convinced thereby it is helping mankind to find permanent solutions. But the linear progression of decisions reached by experts from many disciplines , seen by the sophisticated twentieth-century carnal mind as humanity's major hope for salvation, is still what it has always been: a programmatic tower of Babel. Heaven isn't at the end of its network.

The only reason for existence is to see the infinite good that God has already made. A good that already surrounds us and that can only be discerned by our spiritual sense. An intelligent good of which there is only one: the divine Mind, or God, with its infinite expression. The real man, Paul's new man , is the spiritual outcome of this one Mind, its full and perfect manifestation. When we put off the carnal mind, which blinds us to infinite good, and reach for divine intelligence, we feel the presence of infinite good. Whatever needs solving at that moment is solved. We have found the Christ, and we progress in the only way possible -- out of the limiting belief that there are many minds to placate and organize.

"Christ is the true idea voicing good," writes Mary Baker Eddy, n2 "the divine message from god to men speaking to the human consciousness." n3 This Christ, Truth, is the divine power and authority exemplified by Christ Jesus. When he walked on the water, raised the dead, healed the sick, he was responding to the divine intelligence, the sure message that good is ever present. The forces he overcame and the evils he destroyed were products of the carnal mind -- the belief that good isn't infinite and that evil can exist where good isn't. Because these beliefs aren't true, they have no real existence. Faced with Christy understanding, they can no longer even seem to be true.

n2 Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science;

n3 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 332.

Human existence is a continuous opportunity to respond to the Christ, the true idea from God. If we are to face mankind's big problems effectively, we need to subdue the temptation to put the carnal mind's false sense of intelligence on display. We need to recognize ourselves as the spiritual children we really are -- the children of the one Father- Mother God -- and pray for the Mind that Christ Jesus manifested to be in us. As we learn to do this, mankind will be lifted out of the carnal mind's network of problems, not shoved through them. And we'll be in heaven -- in the realization that good ism infinite -- much sooner than we might otherwise have believed possible. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? Psalms 7 3:24, 25