Finland does have natural resources. Plenty to be frank and it helped a lot. It’s also not so much and not so easily accessible as to enable an oligarchic class to capture the state. A perfect balance.
The immense forests and available waterways were a huge boost when industrialization came around. Then the amount of land was also critical in Finland’s social development. As independence was achieved — also partly possible due to natural features, other former Russian territories didn’t have — proper land distribution was possible and it’s the basis of everything else that followed.
Every single person had enough land to make it on their own and support their offspring’s education. They had to work hard as the land had to be transformed to allow efficient cultivation, but it was an option, unlike most other states which were already overcrowded and the land distributed to the peasantry was not sufficient enough for every individual.
Finland also does have plenty of minerals to be mined compared to its population and it helps. The availability of bedrock to store nuclear waste might just turn out to be a crucial resource in the following years too.
In conclusion, Finland is a quite ideal combination of challenges and opportunities. The climate literally eliminated the lazy for centuries and the rest had just enough resources to transform the landscape.
