Starting with finite views of life, mortals hope that promise will lead to fulfillment. But when we reason in Christian Science from the standpoint of God as Mind, the infinite One, and man as Mind's infinite idea, we recognize that completeness is already the condition of man's real being. Whatever is infinite—whatever expresses the unceasing Life that is immeasurable and infinite—is forever complete; furthermore, it forever unfolds. Infinite completeness implies perpetual unfoldment.
These truths are explained in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Creation is ever appearing, and must ever continue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source." Science and Health, p. 507. And referring to man, she says, "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis." Ibid., p. 258.
Seen in this light the real man—our own true identity— exists at the standpoint of fulfillment, because he is complete and forever unfolding. To mortal sense, promise offers only a hope of fulfillment. But to spiritual sense, promise and fulfillment coincide with the infinite reality of man's being; no separation exists between them.
