Commonly, meanings are several and often subtle. They may be obvious, or they may be hidden. The common interpretation of the statement of Jesus about the value of the world and soul, with the primary value given the soul, is that one may give so much of himself to the physical values of the world that he gives little attention to his soul condition. In the end, the owner estate of each soul will determine his/her immortality, not the condition of the natural estate. This is surely one meaning of what Jesus had in mind when he made the statement, but it was not the only meaning. Implied in the statement is that anything that distracts one from the health of his soul may be taken as gaining something of the world (temporal) and losing something of the human soul (immortal).
During and after the depression of the 1930s in America, the Niebuhr brothers wrote some insightful books and articles. One of these was a book entitled, Moral Man and Immoral Society. It made strong impact, especially in the religious world, and among philosophers and sociologists. I would like to shift the title a bit and refer to Immoral Man in Moral Society. For a great many persons, the achievement of morality in society is the gaining of the world. The quality of the individual soul may seem to mean little to the public, if the society is upright, or trying to be. This is one mistake of many humanists. As the administrator of a college, one who had the final say on vital matters for it, I was called upon to decide about the expulsion of a student who had stolen money from another student. He was something of a vocal activist – about local racial concerns through to international treatment of peoples and nations touched by tensions and inequalities. In my conversation with him before deciding the matter, I was struck by the firmness of his beliefs in social righteousness. He did not permit any break in social rights for all, perceptions which were sound, as I understood rights and equity. For him, this was the beginning and end of rightness. His break with personal integrity that caused him to steal was not seen as a sin. Sin was the ill treatment of groups of people. He admitted that he did not always tell the truth, may have cheated a bit on examinations, but that was not sin, even if one would not condone the conduct. For him, sin was social, not personal. He would gain the whole world but lose himself. Materialism for him, in whatever form, was immaterial to ethical awards in the larger picture of the masses.
Such persons, and they are many in number, would gain the whole world and lose their souls. Further, they defer their own views of mankind and the world when they separate righteousness from personal responsibility, and transfer it to the faceless social figure that gains rights for the greatest number of people. In such instances they lose perspective on the meaning of a single act upon the large social righteousness that they seek. The world may be gained or lost by something more than rights distributions. It may be gained by a faith idealism that gives worth to the individual soul. My own private soul mirrors the social life I mean to live. As important as it is, society is not my righteousness or immortality. It is not my soul. One discovers that an individual soul accounts for itself. Each soul is its own, unto God. Perhaps by living as I ought to live I help make a responsible society to which I point. Further, until we begin with the responsibility of the individual, and make clear how that is to be carried through in belief and conduct, we will not really do well in the mass of society and nations. Even the church may not have given adequate attention to the transitions from personal to public faith and conduct – and back again. We often lose the meaning of life as a compound of personal and public meaning. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020