Think About Someone who is special to you—a spouse, a relative, a close friend or business associate. What comes to mind? Initially, perhaps, the individual's face and physical characteristics. But then we certainly think of qualities—maybe a wonderful sense of humor, a deep love for music, or a boundless energy and enthusiasm for life. From this simple exercise it's easy to see that there is far more to anyone than a physical body, and that qualities abide in thought whether the individual is near or far away.
The qualities of our true identity as the idea of God, made in His image and likeness, are spiritual, Godlike. Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health, "Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love." Science and Health, p. 477 God is Spirit and He is Life itself, as the Bible implies; and the only life His ideas truly have expresses the vitality and strength of incorporeal, eternal Life. God is also Truth, and Truth's ideas are always upright, faithfully reflecting the integrity of the divine nature. God is Love, and each of Love's ideas is tender, pure, and caring. Every quality of true individuality comes from God, and all that comes from God is good. These God-derived qualities have always existed, and will always continue to exist. Each of us expresses God's nature in a distinct way, and each of us has an identity that is safe with God, beyond the reach of changes wrought by time and space.
Sometimes the God-derived qualities of our real being are clearly seen and expressed; sometimes they are not. Negative or sinful character traits are the outcome of a false sense of mind, of the fleshly, carnal mind, and they manifest a distorted view of identity. But through spiritual sense, a capacity that's inherent in everyone and that Science and Health describes as "a conscious, constant capacity to understand God," Ibid., p. 209 we can discern the pure reality of man, which may be temporarily hidden.
