temperament

100:1.6Re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence is markedly in­flu­enced by phys­i­cal health, in­her­ited tem­per­a­ment, and so­cial en­vi­ron­ment. But these tem­po­ral con­di­tions do not in­hibit in­ner spir­i­tual prog­ress by a soul ded­i­cated to the do­ing of the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. There are pres­ent in all nor­mal mor­tals cer­tain in­nate drives to­ward growth and self-re­al­iza­tion which func­tion if they are not specif­i­cally in­hib­ited. The cer­tain tech­nique of fos­ter­ing this con­sti­tu­tive en­dow­ment of the po­ten­tial of spir­i­tual growth is to main­tain an at­ti­tude of whole­hearted de­vo­tion to su­preme val­ues.

101:7.1An idea is only a the­o­ret­i­cal plan for ac­tion, while a pos­i­tive de­ci­sion is a val­i­dated plan of ac­tion. A stereo­type is a plan of ac­tion ac­cepted with­out val­i­da­tion. The ma­te­ri­als out of which to build a per­sonal phi­los­o­phy of re­li­gion are de­rived from both the in­ner and the en­vi­ron­men­tal ex­pe­ri­ence of the in­di­vid­ual. The so­cial sta­tus, eco­nomic con­di­tions, ed­u­ca­tional op­por­tu­ni­ties, moral trends, in­sti­tu­tional in­flu­ences, po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, racial ten­den­cies, and the re­li­gious teach­ings of one’s time and place all be­come fac­tors in the for­mu­la­tion of a per­sonal phi­los­o­phy of re­li­gion. Even the in­her­ent tem­per­a­ment and in­tel­lec­tual bent markedly de­ter­mine the pat­tern of re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy. Vo­ca­tion, mar­riage, and kin­dred all in­flu­ence the evo­lu­tion of one’s per­sonal stan­dards of life.

69:5.13Ac­cu­mu­la­tions of wealth early be­came the badge of so­cial dis­tinc­tion. In­di­vid­u­als in cer­tain tribes would ac­cu­mu­late prop­erty for years just to cre­ate an im­pres­sion by burn­ing it up on some hol­i­day or by freely dis­tribut­ing it to fel­low tribes­men. This made them great men. Even mod­ern peo­ples revel in the lav­ish dis­tri­bu­tion of Christ­mas gifts, while rich men en­dow great in­sti­tu­tions of phi­lan­thropy and learn­ing. Man’s tech­nique varies, but his dis­po­si­tion re­mains quite un­changed.