“Now bear in mind the following: Appetites and passions create desires; by means of the reasoning faculties, desires create beliefs of which the soul-consciousness, the divine-life within, makes a law, the law of the individual life. This law is the religious faith, and when it is established, the conscience justifies everything in accordance with it and condemns everything contrary to it. Consequently conscience, which the world and especially the church have relied upon as a guide, becomes a guide in its relation only to established beliefs.
Take in illustration, the story of the Arab father whose wife became the mother of a beautiful female child. According to his religious belief, the child must be destroyed, as it was not among the number that it was lawful to preserve. But the child was very beautiful, and the mother persuaded the father to allow it to live. As the years went on, however, his conscience pricked him continually, and as the child neared maturity he could no longer endure the condemnation of conscience and consequently put the girl to death. Had he been a Christian, he would have considered this act a great crime and his conscience never would have forgiven him, but with the Arab, the case was reversed.
Now the question arises: If this life, this source of the intuitive and higher mentality, this producer of all mind, is one with God the Creator of all things, why should it impress one in a certain direction and another in the opposite direction? The answer is, in order that the creative purpose may be worked out in nature, and individual experience become knowledge from which to form a law more and more correct, a law finally in harmony with divine law, a law according to the nature of the God of the universe.
In order that man may realize that he only is responsible for every act of his life, he must be at liberty to commit error and to suffer the result of it, and to do right and to enjoy the benefits arising therefrom. God, the Source and Essence of his life, leaves him free to experiment with all the laws of his nature.
When a man makes a law which he decides is good, the good is such in view of his purpose, in view of the object desired. And the divine life within impresses the consciousness with the thought of error when he does those things which are contrary to his own law, the law under which he is working for the accomplishing of his purpose. For good is that which does good, in view of a purpose.
Conscience admonishes in accordance with these facts so that the man is able to centralize all his powers in whatever direction he chooses. But if the law man makes is not in harmony with the Divine Purpose, with the trend of universal creation, he not only meets many difficulties in his way, but at the end he will find that he has built his house upon the sand, that he has built a structure that must be destroyed.
Thus, while God, the Source of life, serves man’s will faithfully, yet at the same time man himself is made responsible for the result of every act. By this means man is made conscious of his true need and awakened to an eager pursuit of knowledge.
By reason of the great diversity of human life, there is necessarily a great diversity of individual conception of truth, but nevertheless there are general laws which all thinking intelligences can recognize, and do recognize, when presented in an orderly form; and these laws furnish a foundation for correct reasoning.
The apostle states that, “all men are members of one body and that each is a member in particular.” That each man does represent a function of the human organism is undoubtedly a truth, a truth, in accordance with which, when the great foundation principles of true knowledge are presented and accepted, everyone will take up some specific line of activity according to his function in the grand body, and will carry out some particular phase of truth peculiar to his own mental formation. Nevertheless, it will be truth because it is based upon demonstrable facts, facts that underlie all truth.
Thus, it will take all members of the body of humanity, to grasp, comprehend, and ultimate all truth. But surely, we have reached a stage of development when the fundamental, the underlying facts we are presenting, may be known and made the cornerstone of the grand temple of knowledge. We, therefore, hope, that this little volume may aid in bringing to the mind of the reader great general facts, or even that it may suggest, the necessity of the knowledge, of such facts.”
Hiram Butler
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 