Article August 11, 1934 Issue

Individual Responsibility

JULES CERN

The thought of responsibility not uncommonly causes individuals a sense of burden, anxiety, self-depreciation, self-righteousness, or any number of other false beliefs about a selfhood apart from God.

To determine what is true responsibility, it is well to consider first what true individuality is. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 503), "In the universe of Truth, matter is unknown." Since Truth is all-inclusive and all-knowing, and since matter is unknown to the all-knowing Mind, "the universe of Truth" is the only real universe. And since nothing can exist beyond allness, there is in reality nothing to know about or to exist as matter. In the same blessed book our Leader further states (p. 250), "Mortal existence is a dream;" and, "A mortal is not man, for man is immortal." She also says, "Whatever appears to be a mortal man is a mortal dream." Where, then, in the infinitude of Truth, could there appear, even as a dream, "a mortal man" with earthly responsibilities? Can a dream be responsible, or have responsibilities?

To the real man there is no material circumstance, position, trial, place, condition, or person to be responsible for or to. All the ideas of divine Love go forward together; all are of one Mind, one Love. Each one fulfills uninterruptedly and joyously God's purpose. Man, then, God's image, is responsible alone to God. A dictionary definition of "responsible" is "answerable." And how grateful one may be that man answers only as God would have him answer—by expressing Him! No opposing elements exist to interfere with his doing the Father's will. Every element God creates is perfect. Man forever expresses God, and this unity allows no seeming duplicity of existence or expression. Love—pure, perfect, and omnipotent—is all that man can yield to. The real man and universe were never relegated to material identities. Nothing exists from which God's man needs to be protected. For men to fear even the possibility of evil is, then, to fear something outside of God's allness, which is an obvious impossibility.

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