God is All-in-all and why this matters

Spiritual resource to share:  unity in diversity




I was thinking over the idea that is shared over a dozen times in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.  "God is All-in-all."  So I did what every good 21st century thinker would do.  I googled it.


"All in all" is used to express when we take everything into account, once we have considered all sides of an issue, or wrap things up with a final analysis.


But it goes much deeper than that.  I came across several essays searching for truth in Milton's Paradise Lost and his other writings. 


Milton's quote was the only other quote on my search that even came close to "All-in-all."  Milton wrote "God shall be All in All." This means that God is the omnipotent, omnipresent Oneness.  Unity, the essayist explained, need not involve a loss of uniqueness, but embraces individuality and diversity in an ultimate Oneness.


Here are some of Eddy's ideas with God as All-in-all:


The maximum of good is the infinite God and His idea, the All-in-all.



The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind,--that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle.



The Scriptures imply that God is All-in-all. From this it follows that nothing possesses reality nor existence except the divine Mind and His ideas . 



Most notable is the use of All-in-all in the "Scientific Statement of Being," from Science and Health which reads in part: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.  All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." 


All right then.  This all jives.  So why is it important that we know this?


It takes some thought at times for me to consider just how large the idea of God is.  That God is All, yes.  But to understand that this Allness encompasses the most infinitesimal and intimate details as well as the grandest, most expansive and infinite ideas, is to understand God's supremacy.


It follows then because God is infinite  - the ultimate Oneness -  God is the umbrella that maintains and sustains all individualities, and embraces all diversities of gifts.


Does that mean that you and I are all the same?  No - we are proof of infinite God.  Like individual numbers proving the existence of a higher mathematics,  we are God's reflection shown in infinite diversity.


Once I can wrap my thoughts around this, I find it easier to heal.  Why?  Because it's been proved and reasoned out that the one Mind governs all. No one is left out of health, wholeness and abundance.


It gives me a foundation for church - that I can expect and see unity amongst differing ideas and practices.


It gives me hope. I can understand how God loves all the wide diversity called mankind.  The tenderness with which I know God, is the same tenderness God pours out to all Her children.


God is All-in-all.