ABSTRACT
The concept of identity relates directly to the principle of responsibility, in that clinical data show how strengthened identity increases awareness of responsibilities. Understanding how ethical decisions influence behavior is another aspect of responsibility. Facts also influence experiences of religion and definitions of responsibility, with the result that facts and moral or ethical issues are inextricably related. Responsibility also relates to capacities to define goals and objectives that are congruent with both individual integrity and the social good. Religious responsibility can be thought of as obligations or duties that respond to supernatural powers. Religious responsibility differs from secular responsibility in that religious responsibility is upheld by sacred rather than secular sanctions. Religious responsibility transports people beyond their immediate empirical concerns. Religious responsibility can be thought of in relation to a specific religion—which may be either a denomination or a sect—or it can be considered as a spiritual mandate that transcends all religions as well as all secular conditions.
