What is the conscience?

The word "conscience" seems to have come to the New Testament writers from the Stoic philosophers, the most influential teachers of ethics in the Graeco-Roman world. The Stoics used the word to designate our capacity for moral judgement.

How do we understand conscience? Some psychologists and sociologists have tried to explain it by explaining it away. One sociologist gave this description of conscience: "The sense of discomfort aroused by the disapproval of the herd." An eminent Canadian psychiatrist and medical statesman once put it this way: "Your conscience is what your mother told you before you were six years old."

The simple definition of conscience given many centuries ago by St. Thomas Aquinas is still a useful one: "Conscience is the mind of man passing moral judgements." He assumed, of course, that the mind of the Christian is guided by God through prayer, disciplines of faith, and adherence to the laws and norms as brought to us by the Church.

You do not have a conscience as a sort of inner spiritual organ. Conscience is not a thing, but a function, not something fixed at some point in life but an active capacity that grows and changes. And God does not speak to your conscience in a telegraphic sort of way, giving you specific instructions: he speaks to you through the pervasive and ongoing influence of his Spirit as you open yourself to him in prayer, worship and meditation.

Conscience does not guarantee to give you the right moral answers at all times. Conscience develops and matures; sometimes it deteriorates and decays. You must never take your conscience for granted and presume on its effectiveness. The popular admonition, "Let your conscience be your guide," is good advice only to the person who has a good, well-formed conscience in harmony with the Gospels and the moral teaching of the Church, and who works at ever improving it. You must recognize, that your conscience is always open to distortion in varying degrees by your desires, by your hopes, by your prejudices. And, as it has been put: "Good coffee keeps more people awake nowadays than a bad conscience."

If your conscience is comfortable and clear most of the time, you are probably suffering from moral insensitivity: the realities of life are such that no one is entitled to a consistently comfortable and clear conscience. In T.S. Elliot's play, "The Cocktail Party", O'Reilly, the psychiatrist, makes his point: "Your business is not to clear your conscience, but to learn how to bear the burden of your conscience."

The conscience of the Christian is developed and nourished in the practices of faith. It grows and deepens as we open ourselves to the Spirit of God through Holy Scripture and Tradition as presented to us by the Magisterium of the Church, and as we exercise our faith and test it in Christian witness and compassionate service.

"Better saved with a burdened conscience than eternally damned with a clear conscience."

Adapted from Rev. J.A. Davidson (not Catholic!!!) Adapted from Rev. J.A. Davidson (not Catholic!!!)