Editorial August 17, 1918 Issue

Individual Responsibility

Annie M. Knott

If there is one thing which is insisted upon in the Scriptures more than any other, it is our individual responsibility and freedom to choose between right and wrong. In the Genesis allegory we find Adam seeking to evade this demand of Principle by fixing upon Eve the blame for his disobedience to the divine command. His complaint was not disregarded, but the woman's answer to the challenge of Truth uncovered the error of sensuous animal magnetism and brought her deliverance, although her share of the "thorns" and "thistles" of mortal experience remained to be patiently weeded out. Here we find the prophecy that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent, respecting which Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 533): "Truth, cross-questioning man as to his knowledge of error, finds woman the first to confess her fault. ... She has already learned that corporeal sense is the serpent. Hence she is first to abandon the belief in the material origin of man and to discern spiritual creation."

The psalmist says, "Unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work." From the Christian Science viewpoint we might add that every man will be judged not merely according to his work but according to his thought, which is back of every outward effort. It is true that we must take into account the human belief in duality expressed in one's character, which is explained by Mrs. Eddy in the Glossary to Science and Health, where we find the mortal concept but in contrast therewith the spiritual idea. We occasionally hear the statement made by students of Christian Science that the individual has really nothing to deal with but his own thought; and in a sense this is true, because the judgment of Truth finally deals with this alone, but we must not forget that one has a human mental environment to overcome, and thus to prove his spiritual strength.

It should never be forgotten that the most extreme difficulties and the seeming disabilities of mortal experience when rightly faced bring out the latent possibilities which otherwise might never be called into action, and so become splendid opportunities to reach real greatness. A poet writes:—

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