In the eternal now man is the son of God, the perfect image and likeness of his perfect creator, reflecting the glorious purity and satisfaction of his perfect Principle. How gratifying it is to know that the real man, and there is no other, goes through no process of suffering or struggle to rise to this perfect state, since he already includes it in his rich inheritance as the son of God.
To admit the suggestion that man, God's idea, must rise, necessarily includes the admission that he can fall, which is utterly impossible, since the very unity of God and man precludes any such possibility. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy we are told (p. 246): "The perfect and immortal are the eternal likeness of their Maker. Man is by no means a material germ rising from the imperfect and endeavoring to reach Spirit above his origin. The stream rises no higher than its source."
This does not mean that there need be no human sense of improvement and progress. Far from it. However, improvement and success should be acknowledged and evidenced as the "added things" which follow naturally and without effort upon the recognition and demonstration of man's real selfhood. Man's perfect being is one with God in that kingdom which Jesus counseled us to seek, and we have his bounden promise that if we seek the kingdom of God first, "all these things shall be added."
