The luminous embryo or star child that fills the screen at the end of the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey has stirred audiences and provided a touchstone for futurists in recent years. For some it symbolizes the hope that a new kind of human can develop through material processes, a being whose mind is more powerful and less bound by matter.
Against this hope, not uncommon today, that material modes will evolve new and improved creatures, stands the Christian vision: that human progress appears only as matter surrenders to Spirit, and that in this self-surrender lies the only hope for the future. In line with this view Mrs. Eddy writes, "The cross is the central emblem of history."Science and Health, p. 238.
Some optimists expect a future golden age as technical skill explores subatomic energies, splices genes, programs psyches. Others, noting the side effects of this kind of expertise, predict a decline, perhaps even a modern Dark Ages. But human thought, looking into the future, often peers down a corridor of mirrors, seeing reflections of its present self. What it sees may not be a reliable gauge of the future.
