Virtue

[Mara]

But virtue is not automatic.  It is volitional.

21:3:14   If ever the authority or administration of a Creator Son is challenged, attacked, or jeopardized, he is eternally pledged to uphold, protect, defend, and if necessary retrieve his personal creation. Such Sons can be troubled or harassed only by the creatures of their own making or by higher beings of their own choosing. It might be inferred that “higher beings,” those of origin on levels above a local universe, would be unlikely to trouble a Creator Son, and this is true. But they could if they chose to. Virtue is volitional with personality; righteousness is not automatic in freewill creatures.

Virtue is righteousness — conformity with the cosmos. 16:7:6  

Only a personality can know what it is doing before it does it – can look before it leaps.  16:7:3

 

It has always been difficult to grasp the differences between personality will and creature will.  But I did find this achievement to think about.  It is doable.

111:5:4   Peace in this life, survival in death, perfection in the next life, service in eternity — all these are achieved (in spirit) now when the creature personality consents — chooses — to subject the creature will to the Father’s will. And already has the Father chosen to make a fragment of himself subject to the will of the creature personality.

Creature personality consents to subject the creature will to the Father’s will?  Hmmm.

[Bonita]

Mara wrote:  But virtue is not automatic.  It is volitional.

Sure it is. The quote says that virtue is indigenous to personality.  This goes along with morality awareness.  Personality is from God. Personality comes to us already in a virtuous state.

I believe you might be thinking of character.  Character is NOT indigenously virtuous.  Inherited characters can be base or noble.  What one chooses to become, the nature of the character of the soul, is a matter of choice.  But the personality itself is a unique and original pattern of virtue himself.

And once the Adjuster arrives, that personality becomes an active and functioning agent of virtue.  Otherwise, what would personality unify toward?  It unifies according to its Origin, which is virtue, led by the Source himself.

The psyche of a child is naturally positive (103:2.5).  That is because both mind and personality are indigenously positive unifying factors of selfhood. It’s only when one resists or fights against their God-given nature that they become negative or unrighteous.

16:7.1 Morality, virtue, is indigenous to human personality.

[Bonita]

16:7.6  In the day-by-day life of mortal man, virtue is realized by the consistent choosing of good rather than evil, and such choosing ability is evidence of the possession of a moral nature.

In the above quote, it says that opting for goodness over evil allows us to realize virtue, the virtue which is indigenous to our personality and revealed by our Adjuster.  It’s evidence of our original nature, proof of our parentage, so to speak.

 

[Bonita]

48:7.19 Ambition is dangerous until it is fully socialized. You have not truly acquired any virtue until your acts make you worthy of it.

I think this quote tells us a lot about the volitional part of virtue.  Our personalities may come from God with native virtue, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept it.  We have the power to deny it.  But even when we accept our virtuous heritage, we don’t actually acquire, or own virtue as a personal experience, until we socialize it.  That means to share it; sharing is another word for service.

 

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