UNDERLYING and pervading all true greatness and goodness is the virtue of moral courage, for moral courage is mankind's response to God's direction, and the listening post of conscience is its launching pad. The writer feels that the Biblical idiom (I Pet. 3:21), "the answer of a good conscience toward God," describes moral courage.
Since conscience is what we hear of Truth's voice communicating itself to mankind, it is a friend. To listen and to act upon its promptings is the wisdom which establishes wholeness of health, happiness, security.
A spiritually-minded individual dares to challenge collective wrong in standing for right because moral courage partakes of something beyond human acumen and strength; it partakes in a measure of the character and strength of Truth, God. Christian Science makes clear that the only genuine man is fearless and upright because of his divine origin as the image of God, as described in the first chapter of Genesis. God is Love, and moral courage, born of one's understanding of man's relationship to God, is simply a matter of mankind's bearing witness to God's goodness. Our demonstrated moral courage is but the human expression of God's unchanging rightness.
