- 66 - 8. 16 Obeisance towards Human Authority as Ideals of Perfection What has been said concerning the vows of absolute poverty and permanent chastity in the form of celibacy applies equally to the vow of unquestioning obedience to human superiors. This also is contrary to the will of God, being merely an invention of man’s lust for power. • God gave every spirit at the moment of its creation, as His greatest gift, the gift of free will. God does not restrict anyone’s liberty to govern by their own personal decisions what they will do and not do. It is also not His will that it should be restricted by humans, since everybody is personally responsible for everything they do throughout every moment of their lives. It is a responsibility that no one can take over for you. No one can justify himself before God by appealing to the fact that he subordinated his will and his personal decision to the will of another. • As soon as a person has reached the age of reason, he must never subordinate his will blindly to that of any fellowman, whether an ecclesiastical or a secular authority. Blind obedience is due to God alone. When it says in the Bible, ‘Obedience is better than sacrifice’, this refers only to obedience to God, never to obedience to man, in spite of the fact that people in authority, and ecclesiastics in particular, are prone to quote this passage from the Bible in order to secure the blind obedience of their subordinates. The false doctrine has also been propounded that blind obedience to an ecclesiastical superior relieves the obedient person of all personal responsibility for the actions involved, that the only thing he may not do is be obedient to the point of committing a sin. This is a big misconception! For man is personally responsible not only for such wrongs as he may commit, but also for any good deeds he fails to perform. In fact, the sins of omission may often be more serious than those of commission. According to your doctrine, if an ecclesiastically superior orders a subordinate to commit theft, that order must not be obeyed. If, on the other hand, the superior forbids his subordinate, for example, to help a fellowman when it is in the subordinate’s power to do so, the latter must refrain from giving help, despite the fact that in the eyes of God failing to help might be a far greater sin than the theft. In such a case the subordinate could not justify himself before God by contending that his duty toward his superior prevented him from doing a good deed that he would have performed had he been free to follow the dictates of his own conscience. On the contrary, it is his duty to obey the dictates of his conscience under all circumstances. Another man’s conscience can never replace one’s own. To every individual God has allotted a special task, and they must fulfill it, without allowing themselves to be prevented from doing so by human orders or manmade ordinances. It follows that no one may subordinate his own will to that of another by virtue of a vow of obedience. • The vow of obedience that is rendered by your priests and members of religious orders is, therefore, against God’s will.
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