Conscience Formation

CHAPTER FIVE

CONSCIENCE UNDERSTOOD TODAY• Conscience has many meanings today• Conscience as majority opinion

• Conscience as a feeling

• Psychological conscience

• Conscience as gut-instinct

• Conscience as Jiminy Cricket

• Conscience as Myth

THE CONSEQUENCES OF MODERN THINKING

• Conscience in modernity understood as a majority opinion operates on the idea that the masses are right

• The problems with this are:• Conscience becomes the

responsibility of the group

• Behavior is guided and conformed by popular opinion

THE CONSEQUENCES OF MODERN THINKING

• The conscience in modernity relating to feelings--nonrational factors creates two major problems:• No moral guidance--Feelings/passions

cannot adequately and fully guide a person into a good life

• No obligation to follow the conscience--Since feelings are so sporadic and unliable it would be better not to follow them

THE CONSEQUENCES OF MODERN THINKING

• Conscience in modernity understood psychologically creates a morality based on approval and disapproval

• The problem with this is:• There is no self-chosen response

to God but instead an unresolved psyche that desires resolution

THE CONSEQUENCES OF MODERN THINKING

• Conscience understood in modernity as a gut-instinct is similar to basing decisions on feelings

• The problems with instincts are:• No reasoning is involved

• And it gives people excuses to not grow morally and develop a relationship with God

THE CONSEQUENCES OF MODERN THINKING

• Conscience understood in modernity as the “Jiminy Cricket” or the internal voice concept and as a myth allow conscience to be more of a fairytale, unrealistic faculty in a person

• The problem with this is:• Death to morality

WHAT IS CONSCIENCE?• Conscience first and

foremost is the awareness of moral truth

• Moral truth=Moral absolutes • Moral Truth is: Objective,

conforms to our reality, and leads us to the Good.

LEVELS OF THE CONSCIENCE

• Conscience in Catholic morality has many levels

• General Moral Conscience

• Particular Moral Conscience

• Transcendental Conscience

GENERAL MORAL CONSCIENCE

• This is a broad and more generalized understanding of truth

• A person is aware of the “καρδία” (the seat and center of all physical and spiritual life)

• St. Thomas designated this level as synderesis: Innate knowledge

PARTICULAR MORAL CONSCIENCE • This level is based on moral

deliberation

• Reasoning is used

• Judgment is used

• Intellect is used

• There is no feelings, disapproval or a mysterious nonrational agent involved

• This is a reflective moral judgment—a concern for the truth

HOW PARTICULAR AND GENERAL RELATE

General Conscience Particular Judgment

(Life is good--Do not Kill) (Life in the womb)

TRANSCENDENTAL CONSCIENCE

• The word conscience comes from the Latin conscientia which comes from the Greek συνείδησις which means “A joining of moral and spiritual consciousness as part of being created in the divine image”

Physical Spiritual Human

TRANSCENDENTAL CONSCIENCE

• We are made in the divine image and we are called to be with God

• Conscience is self-awareness commanding us not “to do” but “to be”

• We are not fully the beings God calls us to be

• We are capable of becoming more

• Here too we are concerned with moral truth

HOW ALL THE LEVELS WORK TOGETHER

Brings us closer to God

General Particular Choice

( Life is good) (Life in the womb)

Takes us further away from God

(sin)

ACTION AND CONSCIENCE

• There is an obligation to follow the conscience

• Each of the levels above demonstrates why we are to “follow” our conscience

• First, we are aware of good and bad

• Second, we are to pursue the good avoid evil

• Third, we are to be faithful to ourselves

ACTION AND CONSCIENCE

• “The judgment of conscience has an imperative character: man must act in accordance with it. If man acts against this judgment or, in a case where he lacks certainty about the rightness and goodness of a determined act, still performs that act, he stands condemned by his own conscience, the proximate norm of personal morality. The dignity of this rational forum and the authority of its choice and judgments derive from the truth about moral good and evil, which it is called to listen to and to express.”

• JPII Veritatis Splendor

FORMING A CONSCIENCE

• John Paul II states that we must act on truth

• Some however may not have a well informed conscience and are ignorant

• This means that they cannot be held accountable for their poor judgments

• That they do not become an evildoer

FORMING A CONSCIENCE

• This does not mean however that a person is exempt from forming a “correct” conscience

• We cannot allow our conscience to remained deformed

• Two rules:

• Form your conscience

• Follow your conscience

FORMING A CONSCIENCE

• “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23)

• We must have a rightly informed conscience and follow it. But our judgments…can be mistaken…we must do everything in our power to see to it that our judgments of conscience are informed…

• To live in Christ from the bishops of the USA

INFORMED CONSCIENCE

• We need to become aware

• We need to inform ourselves

• Grasping the implications of basic moral principles

• How to apply these principles

• We can go to Christ and to the Church to guide us

A METHOD IN MAKING MORAL DECISION

Review ExecuteElectStudy

ANSWERS TO CHAPTER QUESTIONS

1. Wrong ideas about conscience include:

• Conscience as majority opinion

• Conscience as a feeling

• Conscience as superego

• Conscience as gut-instinct

• Conscience as a “Jimmy Cricket”

• Conscience as myth

2. Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed.

ANSWERS TO CHAPTER QUESTIONS

3. Conscience is awareness of God’s call to be, Gods call to know and do the good or right thing.

4. Conscience helps us in the here-and-now of a particular, concrete act to discover the loving path and to avoid the path that is evil.

ANSWERS TO CHAPTER QUESTIONS1. Growth in virtue and overcoming vice are important because most decisions we make

are made by habit and we give them little thought. An increase of virtue improves our changes of making good decisions

2. A) You must always form a keep informing your conscience, and B) you must follow your conscience

3. Three essential moral rules are: never do evil so good may result from it; whatever you wish others would do to you, so do to them; love your neighbor as yourself

4. We must study information about the moral object, the motives, the circumstances, and the consequences, as well as any alternatives. We must also review the fundamental principles of morality and how to apply them, as well as seek out trusted mentors for advice

5. Prayer helps to slow down and react against the contemporary culture; it reminds us of God’s love for us.

6. In review we can know if our consciences are clear. We can discover what we have done (or not done) to become (or not become) the kind of person God wants us to be.