When the Apostle Paul referred, in his letter to the Romans, to “the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (11:33), he was speaking from the authority of his own life experience, in which he had felt God’s mighty power redeeming him in a way beyond what the human mind could understand. He recognized his relationship to the one all-wise, all-knowing God, and this radically changed his life for the better.
Of itself, the human intellect can glimpse little of the wisdom and knowledge of God. So in order for us to know and understand God more deeply and broadly, the human intellect must yield more fully to the divine intelligence. Then we grow in grace as we see beyond the limitations of an intellectual sense of God, or good, and progressively understand and prove that God, the divine Principle of all real being, meets our legitimate needs and heals us.
Paul was familiar with the benefits and limits of intellectual thinking; he was from Tarsus, a city famous for its pursuit of culture and philosophy, and which had a distinguished university. In his book The Mind of St. Paul, scholar and theologian William Barclay, writing about the influences on Paul as a young person, explains that Tarsus was “a city with such a desire for knowledge, such a respect for scholarship, and such an intellectual ferment of thought that no thinking young man could entirely escape the contagion of the thronging ideas which crowded the air.” It’s easy to imagine the young Paul (then called Saul) grappling with this intellectual activity. And it seems that his exposure to ideas, knowledge, philosophy, and culture was an important element in his individual development, urging him to think deeply and more expansively.
In order for us to know and understand God more deeply and broadly, the human intellect must yield more fully to the divine intelligence.
Later, as a young man persecuting the followers of Jesus, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a spiritual awakening so profound that it changed his life forever. He felt divinely called to follow the Christ, and changed from being a persecutor of the early movement of Jesus’ followers to being an ardent supporter of it. As he yielded to the divine intelligence, he came to understand, in a much more substantial way than he had before, the one omniscient God, Spirit, in whom he said “we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). He perceived something of the fact that every individual, in spiritual reality, is made in God’s likeness and so is spiritual, thus reflecting the “wisdom and knowledge of God.”
Through the revelation and spiritual perception that unfolded to Paul, he came to understand that he had no real life or intelligence separate from God, and he learned to rely on God in his efforts to spread the gospel. He traveled widely, undertaking arduous journeys and surviving perils on land and sea. And he healed people of physical problems through the power of God.
The spiritual dominion that unfolded to Paul gave him the ability and courage to communicate the gospel to a broad audience, including scholars and intellectuals. It’s not surprising to find him, for example, in the second half of the book of Acts, preaching to the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers on Mars’ Hill in Athens (see 17:18–34). Stoicism and Epicureanism were major philosophical systems of the age. Paul must have yearned to share with these intellectuals what he knew of the “depth of the riches” of God, and the practical benefits of understanding one’s relationship to God, which he had come to learn through following the teachings of Christ Jesus. This spiritual understanding, which stirs and uplifts the human intellect, continues to be needed today.
The need is to more fully understand and practice the divine Science that Jesus demonstrated in his life and work. This Science reveals the intelligent relation of God to each one of us and to all of God’s spiritual creation. This relation is that of divine Principle to idea. It is one of creator to creation, where the creation reflects the nature and condition of the creator. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy defines creator this way: “Spirit; Mind; intelligence; the animating divine Principle of all that is real and good; self-existent Life, Truth, and Love; that which is perfect and eternal; the opposite of matter and evil, which have no Principle; God, who made all that was made and could not create an atom or an element the opposite of Himself” (p. 583).
As we open thought to understand our spiritual relationship to the one Mind, God, or divine Principle, we can begin to comprehend the allness of God.
The assertion that we are each a spiritual idea of the one intelligent, creative, all-good God—and that as such we include no material nor evil element as part of our identity—is resisted by the human intellect, focused on the supposed reality of material life separate from God, Spirit. But when, through prayer, inspiration, and spiritually based reasoning, the human intellect yields to the divine intelligence, the resistance of the human mind is progressively replaced by the acceptance and experience of the pure goodness of spiritual reality.
As we open thought to understand our spiritual relationship to the one Mind, God, or divine Principle, we can begin to comprehend the allness of God, and how that precludes the possibility of anything unlike God, Spirit, having any real substance. We can begin to fathom the awe-inspiring fact that material sense is not a reality, but rather an illusion, a mistaken belief in the absence of Spirit, real substance.
Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health: “Matter and Mind are opposites. One is contrary to the other in its very nature and essence; hence both cannot be real. If one is real, the other must be unreal. Only by understanding that there is but one power,—not two powers, matter and Mind,—are scientific and logical conclusions reached. Few deny the hypothesis that intelligence, apart from man and matter, governs the universe; and it is generally admitted that this intelligence is the eternal Mind or divine Principle, Love” (p. 270).
With this understanding, we begin to realize that the intelligent, divine Principle is universally applicable to meet human needs. The shift of thought to a more spiritual basis, where God’s supreme government of His creation is coming more fully to light, enables us to relate more intelligently, more harmoniously and constructively, to our fellow human beings and to our environment, and it gives us the ability to exercise more dominion over our bodies, allowing us to increasingly overcome physical limitations and false human beliefs.
Through my own prayers for myself and my family, and for others, I’ve seen how the acknowledgement of our relationship to God as His spiritual ideas helps bring healing and resolution to challenges, contrary to what materially based reasoning would predict. There have been many healings of physical problems without resorting to material remedies of any kind. Various relationship problems have been resolved, including reconciliation in situations that to material sense might have seemed irreparable. I’ve seen people find good employment in jobs they were well suited to and in professions they loved, despite there seeming to be a serious lack of such jobs available.
These examples illustrate some of the aspects of God’s relationship to us—He cares and provides for us; He maintains our harmony with one another; He causes us to know our true sense of health and wholeness as spiritual, not material.
The human intellect, in its skepticism, might find it difficult to accept that there is a loving God caring for His creation. But the real man (the true spiritual selfhood of each of us, reflecting divine intelligence) intimately knows and understands God as both divine Love and Principle, and gratefully accepts the loving, intelligent relationship God has to each of us as His spiritual ideas. In reference to Paul’s celebration of “the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God,” many would say that the greatest of these riches is the wisdom and knowledge of divine Love.
Christian Science reveals to us the depth of the riches of our oneness with Love, our Father-Mother God. It teaches us our fullness as God’s expression and how we express the divine Principle in multifaceted ways. Our understanding of this spiritual relation of God to each one of us brings healing and transformation to our lives.
Our struggles with materially based reasoning can sometimes seem severe, but Truth, God, is reliable and robust. The relationship we have to God, the one Mind, is enduring. We can always turn to our Father-Mother, our divine source, for wisdom, help, and healing. And then we find the comfort, strength, and spiritual understanding that move us forward. Our spiritual progress is assured as we understand something of the divine intelligence, and how this divine intelligence uplifts and redeems us.
The people of Athens wanted to know more about the “new doctrine” that Paul was preaching. He shared with them something of the wisdom and knowledge of God, Mind, that he had learned of through following the Christ. He told them of the one God and urged them to understand their own oneness with God. Today, as then, turning to the one Mind and glimpsing something of our oneness with Mind can give us a new view of things. It can show us the goodness, wholeness, and freedom inherent in God’s intelligent relationship to us, as divine Principle to its spiritual ideas.
O the depth of the riches both of the
wisdom and knowledge of God!
how unsearchable are his judgments,
and his ways past finding out!
For who hath known the mind of the Lord?
