Max Kappeler’s Teaching Moments
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Critical Point
The way of Science or suffering?
Max Kappeler
(The following is an edited excerpt from Max Kappeler, Spring 2008 Volume 15 Newsletter: The Global Crisis)
“This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace. The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth….
“As this consummation draws nearer, he who has shaped his course in accordance with divine Science will endure to the end. As material knowledge diminishes and spiritual understanding increases, real objects will be apprehended mentally instead of materially. During this final conflict, wicked minds will endeavor to find means by which to accomplish more evil; but those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They will aid in the ejection of error. They will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection” (S&H 96:12–97:4).
What Causes a Crisis?
When we ask: “Is this crisis man-made?” Here, we need to be very careful. Why? Because we may think that the present global crisis appears to be man-made, but man is not the creator, the maker. God, Elohim, alone is the creator, creating only good. In spiritual reality, man is the image and likeness of God—the reflection of God, his maker.
The global crisis is God-impelled, not that God would send us a nuclear war, but because in the God-genesis, the divine idea of God is always pushing mankind forward in a teleological (goal-directed) fashion. This can be seen right from the first 1000-year period in biblical history (4000–3000 B.C.) with the awakening from ignorance (the mist of Eden), to following the light of the spiritual idea (Enoch walks with God). And then ultimately to the seventh 1000-year period of today (2000–3000 A.D.), where we are being driven forward by the Christ-idea to accept the reign of divine Science in heaven and on earth, the fulfillment of the Bible’s divine design for mankind. Every 1000-year period is driving mankind forward, because behind it is God’s plan of universal salvation that precipitates itself on mankind to change, to transform, to mutate, to make a paradigm shift.
God wants us to change and accept a higher spiritual aim, a further goal—to accept the all-embracing realm of divine Principle, Love—the realm of universal, ever-present spiritual perfection.
Therefore, today at the seventh 1000-year period of Love, we need to understand that it is not the politicians, the finance people, the economy or the military leaders who are in charge of mankind’s forward development: It is God, divine Principle, Love itself! The Christ of salvation is pushing. It wants us to change from a material to a spiritual basis and be saved spiritually. As we accept that there is only one God, the universal All-in-all, then we must also accept that the present crisis is something that is in line with the divine plan of God. Otherwise, we must accept that there are many gods and many powers—so with this standpoint, it is no wonder that mankind has the tendency to feel doomed.
The Solution to the Present Global Crisis
As we understand spiritually that God is actually urging us to go forward from a material to a spiritual basis of consciousness, we will witness together collectively God’s goal of all-embracing universal peace and spiritual perfection for all mankind.
But we may still ask: If God is in charge, if we will reach spiritual perfection regardless, then why bother to devote ourselves to finding solutions to our present day global problems? Why not just sit back, do whatever we wish, and wait for God to change global consciousness to a spiritual basis? Ultimately the Christ-idea will transform world consciousness. The spiritual point here is: When each one of us cultures our individual consciousness in the divine categories of God, we embrace the right attitude that allows us to willingly accept (not resist) the ultimate universal divine plan of salvation.
The way of Science or suffering
With our welcoming of God’s all-encompassing divine plan, our individual experience (here and now) will be one of Science and peace, but if we resist “eternal Truth’s” changing of the universe (S&H 255:1), we will experience much suffering. Mrs. Eddy writes; “Either here or hereafter, suffering or Science must destroy all illusions…” (S&H 296:6).
Therefore, according to Mrs. Eddy, the world crisis is evidence of God’s holistic, all-embracing solution. What is asked of us individually is a change in perspective, a paradigm shift, to a consciousness willing to accept the holistic, peaceful, all-embracing solution of God, and to let go of all materiality. We can decide for ourselves whether we will go out from Science and “aid in the ejection of error … and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection” (S&H 97:2–4), or experience the dissolution of a material basis of the universe with “discord and dismay” (S&H 96:13–14).