There's a principle in Hinduism and also in Buddhism that says that there's a part of a person's soul that is a part of God or Brahmin incarnate in the person. It's the reflexive principle of the soul. Judaism also says a person has a part of the "divine throne of God" inside.
The Hindus refer to Atman and says it's a level of a person that's unchanging and the Buddhists disagree and say it's really Anatman and it changes. Actually, a person's soul is a series of aggregates that are in flux, especially according to the Hindus.
When I was working at AT&T, my last boss there used to try to determine if we were on the "right path" literally. And he was an Ivy Leaguer who went to Dartmouth.
When I was working at Con Ed, my boss came up to me and pointed to my right arm or at least to the right side of my body and said, "all I care about is that." Righteousness was taken by the ancients as literal as well as figurative.
I haven't found how to scientifically prove this but I'm sure it's doable with MRI's, Cat scans or something similar.
Every religion stresses righteousness, but not perfectly from what I've seen. There's usually hucksterism and deceipt mixed in. One day, I hope science will evolve to the point where it has more answers than we currently have.