Many thinkers are recognizing that changes in thought over the last century point to a major shift in worldview—in the broad mental framework in which the details of experience are understood. That this shift has occurred through something more profound than linear logic was argued in a seminal book published several decades ago, the influence of which is signified by the recent publication of its third edition. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn argues that although natural science solves puzzles within the existing network of concepts, its discipline also eventually raises questions that cannot be answered within the existing model. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3d. ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996). Consequently an entirely new model must be envisioned. He calls the conceptual network a paradigm, and the revolution in which one network is replaced by another a paradigm shift.
In this article Sandra Peterson, who has written and spoken on the paradigm shift in world-view that is now taking place, explores the meaning of this change from the standpoint of Christian Science.
People must inevitably draw closer to their actual, divine source—the one God. Because man is in truth God's, Spirit's, image, and therefore spiritual, it is natural that we should increasingly find the material world enigmatic and should seek a deeper, spiritual sense of being, the genuine reality of existence. Spiritual reality is always present to be discerned, and the beliefs that veil it can always be dispelled so that more of its radiance shines forth. Speaking of the spiritual universe, Science and Health says, "To material sense, this divine universe is dim and distant, gray in the sombre hues of twilight; but anon the veil is lifted, and the scene shifts into light." Science and Health, p. 513.
