Janet E. Smith is Chair of Life Issues at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. She is the author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later, editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader and of many articles on ethical and bioethics issues. Over 700,000 copies of her tape, Contraception: Why Not, have been distributed. She taught for nine years at the University of Notre Dame and twelve years at the University of Dallas. She speaks nationally and internationally on several issues, especially the Catholic Church's teaching on sexuality. She is serving a second term as a consultor to the Pontifical Council on the Family.
[Editor's note: This is the fourth and final article in a four-part series on the theme: Life in Christ. These articles were originally lectures that have been adapted for readers. The entire series has been edited by Dr. Janet Smith and Joseph Stibora. Click the link to read the first article, the second article, or the third article.]
There is a great deal of confusion — even among Catholics — about conscience. Some people confuse their conscience with their emotions or their opinions, but conscience is neither of these. In the light of earlier articles on the emotions, it should be clear that conscience could not possibly be identified with them. As we learned, our emotions are in need of training so as to be in harmony with the objective moral order. Some might find it more difficult, however, to understand why conscience cannot be identified with our opinions.
Defining Conscience
Initially, conscience may be defined as the practical judgment of the intellect about the rightness or wrongness of human actions. Take a close look at this definition, especially the “bull’s eye” of the definition: judgment. It is important to recognize that conscience refers to an activity — and a uniquely human activity — of the intellect. Now, let’s delve more deeply into this definition.
Man’s Rational Nature
In earlier articles, we learned that human nature is unique because it is a rational nature. Our rational nature is inclined toward truth and goodness and enables us to pursue truth and goodness knowingly and freely. When we consciously pursue goodness we are using moral reason. The natural “anchor” or starting point of moral reason is the principle that says good is to be done and evil is to be avoided. As soon as we discover this principle within ourselves, we are led to ask: “What is the good that I should do?” To answer this question, we learned, we must reflect on our human nature.
Natural Inclinations
In my previous article, we learned that human nature is unique because it is a rational nature. Our rational nature is inclined toward truth and goodness and enables us to pursue truth and goodness knowingly and freely. When we consciously pursue goodness we are using moral reason. The natural “anchor” or starting point of moral reason is the principle that says good is to be done and evil is to be avoided. As soon as we discover this principle within ourselves, we are led to ask: “What is the good that I should do?” To answer this question, we learned, we must reflect on our human nature.
A Habit of Mind
When we arrive at this self-understanding, we have attained a habit of mind by which we know the primary precepts of the natural moral law. This habit of mind does not emerge until we are able to reason in a moral way. When we were growing up, our parents might have said, “I want you to do this” or “I don’t want you to do that.” We might have asked, “Why?” or “Why not?” and our parents might have answered, “Because I said so.” However, when we attain the habit of mind that enables us to know the natural moral law, we are able to understand why something is right or wrong. This habit of mind is what makes the activity of conscience possible. Conscience activates this habit of mind in relation to our concrete actions. In the activity of conscience, who we are at our core is in action. Conscience is the heart and center of all authentic morality.
Let me quote from the Second Vatican Council: “Deep within his conscience, man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and avoid evil tells him inwardly at the right moment: do this, shun that.”
Definition of Conscience
“For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. His dignity lies in observing this law and by it he will be judged. His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths” (GS, 16).
The Second Vatican Council teaches that we all have an internal voice that we should be consulting when we are considering the morality of an action. Note the line: “he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” This internal voice is the voice of God speaking. His voice lays down within each of us a law that tells us what is good and what is bad.
Forming the Conscience
By our very nature, we have the duty to attend to the formation of conscience. Our conscience is not just our own private opinions; it involves learning what is truly right and wrong; it involves learning about the objective moral order. The objective moral order consists of the natural law, the civil law (to the extent that the civil law does not contradict the natural law), and the divine law. We have the duty to form our consciences as correctly as possible by the norms of the objective moral order. Our consciences need the content of the natural, civil, and divine laws.
Magisterium
The Church offers the guidance of the Magisterium — the teaching authority of the Church endowed by Christ Himself — to help us form our consciences correctly. “Magisterium” is derived from the Latin term magister, which means “teacher.” In the Church, the Magisterium is entrusted to and exercised by the pope and the bishops in union with the pope. The pope and bishops are officially assisted by priests, and also by theologians and spiritual writers. The Magisterium is ordinarily exercised through catechesis and preaching. The Magisterium is extraordinarily exercised through the charism of papal infallibility, according to which the Holy Spirit protects the pope from error in teaching matters of faith and morals.
A Bad Conscience
The passage on conscience in Vatican II also states: “…it often happens that conscience goes astray through ignorance which it is unable to avoid without thereby losing its dignity. This cannot be said of the man who takes little trouble to find out what is true or good or when conscience by degrees is almost blinded through the habit of committing sin” (GS, 16).
This passage is very important; it tells us that our consciences can go astray — sometimes through ignorance. If it is unavoidable ignorance we will not be held accountable — we will not lose our dignity. But sometimes we take little trouble to consult our consciences; we don’t ask whether what we are about to do is right or wrong; we simply ask if we will become popular by doing a certain action, or if we will stay out of trouble with our parents or bosses, or if we will get what we want. And sometimes we can hardly hear the voice of our conscience because the habit of sin shuts out the voice of conscience.
Consulting One’s Conscience
Some might ask, “How is that so many people do such bad things if everyone of us has this conscience — a sanctuary, an inner core — where we can speak to God?” We must keep in mind that we have a lot of other voices resounding in our secret core and it’s not always easy to hear God’s voice in the din. We have the voices of our passions, our culture, and our habits. Probably few of us sit down and try to distinguish God’s voice in that cacophony of voices that we find inside of us.
Consulting the conscience does not just mean consulting one’s feelings or opinions, nor what one will feel good about or what one will feel bad about. The primary question has to be “What does God want me to do?” or “What is God’s will in this situation?” The conscience is our access to God; it is where He speaks to us. We need to be listening to the voice inside of us that is God’s voice.
Ignorance Due to Negligence
We read a moment ago that ignorance is one of the things that can obscure one’s conscience. Knowledge is very important for making correct judgments. One is obliged to acquire all the relevant facts in order to make a good judgment. If we do not present our interior voice with the full and proper facts, it cannot speak truthfully to us. If we have access to the facts but do not bother to get them, then we are responsible for the bad judgments that we make. Ignorance due to negligence is no excuse.
For instance, consider a doctor who is in a hurry to get to his golf game and, therefore, doesn’t bother to read a patient’s chart. If he then prescribes a medicine identified on the patient’s chart as lethal to the patient and the patient dies, the doctor could not plead that he didn’t know. He should have known.
Willed Ignorance
There is another kind of ignorance that does not excuse bad action. Willed ignorance means one doesn’t want to know what one needs to know in order to behave morally. We may not want to know whether our actions are right or wrong because we don’t want to stop doing them. We may even hope to use our ignorance to excuse our action. For instance, I may not want to know what time it is so that I will be able to stay out later than I promised I would. Or I may not want to account honestly for my expenditures because I fear I may not be spending my money well.
Non-culpable Ignorance
Sometimes one is ignorant of what one should know but is not responsible for that ignorance. This is non-culpable ignorance. Many of the very young teenage girls who get abortions may well not be culpable for their abortions because they are ignorant about what an abortion really is. Their mothers or teachers may have pushed them to get abortions. When 14-year-olds obey their parents, maybe that’s the best they can do. Some girl may sit down and ponder, “What does God want me to do? I don’t know, but my mom tells me to have an abortion and she knows more than I do….” The young girl may not have all the facts about prenatal life; she may know nothing about the sacredness of life if her parents, her priest, her teachers, or her counselors don’t tell her. An abortion in her case may be a case of humble obedience. Such a girl is subjectively innocent of what she’s done. What she’s done is still objectively evil and intrinsically evil, but she is not subjectively culpable for her act.
Keeping the Conscience Strong
Conscience really needs a life-long formation because conscience is like a muscle: it needs to be kept in shape. Our consciences are made strong through the attempt to learn what good action is: we should learn the Church’s teaching on morality, we should read the gospel, and we should pray. We should consult those whom we know to be good and wise. We should do everything we can to learn what God would have us do.
Sound and Lax Conscience
If we continually attend to the formation of conscience, we will maintain sound consciences, by which we will feel guilty (subjective moral order) when we are guilty (objective moral order). We should strive to avoid the pitfalls of lax consciences (by which we would not feel guilty when we are guilty) or scrupulous consciences (by which we would feel guilty when we are not guilty). A lax conscience is dangerous because it is an open doorway to sin. To the lax conscience, even very serious sins are attractive.
Bad Habits
The quotation we read earlier from the Second Vatican Council speaks about the person who takes little trouble to find out what is true or good because “[his] conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” Habit can falsify the deliberations of an individual. It would, for instance, be a very rare conscience that wouldn’t know that adultery is wrong. But if one has been a habitual adulterer, he or she is unlikely to hear the voice of God about adultery. Adulterers have put that voice out of their minds, probably through a process of rationalization; they try to convince themselves that what they are doing is not really adultery and that there is no point in being faithful to their spouse. The adulterer is saying, “I feel good about having sex with my mistress. It seems right to me. I really love her, she really loves me, but my wife is unresponsive.” The habit of sin has obscured or crippled the individual’s ability to consult his conscience.
Again, consulting one’s conscience is not simply a matter of asking, “Do I feel guilty or do I not feel guilty? Have I decided what seems to me to be right or wrong?” We must make certain that it’s the voice of God we are listening to when we consult our consciences. And we must make certain we have gotten the full information about whatever we are proposing to do in order to make a true and honest evaluation and so that God can speak with us about this particular situation.
Dangers of a Lax Conscience
The importance of a properly formed conscience and the dangers of a lax conscience are well illustrated by the story of a man who died and found himself at the gates of heaven. He was greeted by Saint Peter, who asked him, “Where would you like to go: heaven or hell?” The man paused and then asked, “Can I see both of them before I decide?” “Of course,” Saint Peter said. “Then let me see heaven first,” the man said.
Heaven
Saint Peter took the man through the gates of heaven. The man looked around and noted that some people were singing and praising God, while others were laughing, and still others praying. “I suppose I could survive here,” the man said, “but it looks sort of boring. Can I see hell, now?” Saint Peter took him to the gates of hell. The man went through the gates while Saint Peter waited outside.
Hell
Within the gates, the man discovered a dark, smoke-filled bar. People were drinking, smoking, laughing, and arguing, while loud music blared, loose women drifted about, and a few people were fighting in the corner. As he took all this in, the man concluded: “This looks really great! I could have a blast in a place like this!”
The man came out of hell and returned to the waiting Saint Peter. “I have decided that I want to go to hell.” “Are you sure?” Saint Peter asked. “Once you decide, there is no turning back.” “I understand perfectly,” the man retorted. Saint Peter led the man to the gates of hell and closed the gates behind him.
Hell: A Choice
Once within the gates of hell, the man peered into the pitch-black darkness surrounding him, and he felt intense heat and began to sweat profusely. Suddenly, the man felt the prongs of a pitch fork on his rear end, then on his thigh, and then on his back. “Wait a minute!” he cried out. “Hold everything! Stop! Where’s the party? Where are the music, the drinks, and the women?” With a little smile, the devil said in response, “Oh, you must have seen our demo!”
The point of our little story is clear: because we choose our actions, we choose our characters and our characters determine our destiny. Those who are in hell chose to be there. They did not form their consciences well, or refused to listen to them. They allowed themselves to be seduced by pleasure rather than habituate themselves to do what is good. In short, they sinned.
Sin
Sin is a falling short of our vocation as members of the Bride and Body of Christ, the Church. Sin is an offense against God because it is the deliberate turning away from God’s love and because sin dehumanizes us. Sin makes us less than what God created us to be: His image and likeness.
Mortal & Venial Sin
A sound conscience rightly judges whether sins are mortal or venial. Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man and turns him completely away from God. If mortal sin is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from God’s Kingdom and the eternal death of hell. It is impossible for a person in the state of mortal sin to act with Christ.
Venial sin weakens the life of grace in us — weakens the graced ability to act with Christ — but does not set us in direct opposition to God. Repeated venial sins, however, create an increased proclivity to sin; they cause a conscience to become lax.
Conditions for Mortal Sin
For sin to be mortal, three conditions must be met: 1) the action performed must be seriously evil; for instance it must be a serious violation of the Ten Commandments; 2) the person committing the sin must do so with full knowledge; and 3) the sinner must act with complete consent.
Those who are careful to inform their consciences, who keep their consciences good by receiving the sacraments, and who follow their consciences can live a life free from mortal sin, though they may struggle fiercely with venial sin. The virtuous life is a life of struggle.
A Synthesis
The answer to one final question will enable us to synthesize all of our previous reflections in terms of “Life in Christ.” The question is: how can we make concrete the link between the “Gift of the Gospel,” on the one hand, and “Putting on the Mind of Christ” and “Acting with Christ,” on the other hand?
Eternal Law
Previously, we learned that the eternal law is the order or design of creation that God continually sustains and governs. An analogy might help here. If I decide to build a desk, I first have an idea in my mind about the desk that I have decided to build. That idea in my mind is the design for the building and maintenance of the desk. Likewise, the eternal law — God’s design for creating and sustaining the universe — is in God’s mind.
Christ is the Eternal Law
We also learned that, from all eternity, the Father was knowing himself, and that this self-knowing of the Father — being God’s self-knowing — cannot be less than God. This self-knowing of the Father — which is in the Father’s mind — is so perfect that it is a Person: the Son. The point here is that the Son is the eternal law. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made” (Jn 1:1-3). God gave us Christ as the ultimate gift so that we would know God’s mind. When we put on the mind of Christ, we learn the mind of God.
Conscience: Image of the Son
But we can say even more. We just concluded that the Son is the eternal law, and you know from the third presentation that the natural moral law is the human participation in the eternal law. The natural law, therefore, is God's Word in us speaking to our consciences. That Word of God is no one else than the Son, the perfect image of the Father. When our consciences direct us towards the good, we can now conclude, they are truly the image of God in us. Therefore, it is proper to say that conscience is the image of the Son in us.
Sin Kills Christ
At this point we need once again to focus on the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. One way to understand the meaning of the Paschal Mystery is as the culmination of the original sin: if we first rejected being created in the image of the Son, we then killed the Son in whose image we were created. (By the way, this tells us that every sin that I commit is an expression of my desire to kill Christ.) To resume: if the Holy Spirit is the Father’s Love for the Son as well as the Son’s Love for the Father, we must say that the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ is also the external expression of the Father’s pained Love (Holy Spirit) over our having rejected being created in the image of His Son.
Activity of the Holy Spirit
We know that this Holy Spirit by Whom Jesus rose from the dead is the same One Who makes us members of the Bride and Body of Christ. In the light of our question — how do we make more concrete the link between the “Gift of the Gospel” on the one hand, and “Putting on the Mind of Christ” and “Acting with Christ” on the other hand — we must now focus on this activity of the Holy Spirit more intensely.
When we reach the age of reason, the Holy Spirit comes to us in our conscience (the image of the Son in us). Within our conscience, the Holy Spirit convicts us of killing Christ. In this conviction, the Holy Spirit (now known to be the pained Love of the Father) brings to us in our conscience a taste of the Father’s pained Love over our having rejected being created in the image of His Son. To have this pain at one’s core is what it means to repent. In short, “repentance” is the answer to our question about the connection between our presentations.
Repentance
The Holy Spirit does not convict us in order to condemn us, but to re-create us. Repentance or continuing conversion is the doorway to the Holy Spirit’s “breathing” the “Gift of the Gospel” within us — the doorway to our being trinified and made members of the Body and Bride of Christ. Repentance or continuing conversion is another way of describing the formation of conscience. In our continuing conversion, by the power of the Holy Spirit (the divine law), the “Gift of the Gospel” becomes “Life in Christ” within us, beginning in our conscience, the image of the Son within us. In short, through repentance — which is itself a gift — the “depths of man” are filled with the “depths of God.”
Enjoying God's Kingdom
The more deeply converted we are — the more deeply we repent and cooperate with the Holy Spirit — the more deeply and fully we will enjoy God’s Kingdom. This point is well illustrated by another story of a man who died and found himself at the gates of heaven. Saint Peter greeted him and informed him that he was entitled to enter heaven. The man was delighted that he had made it. Saint Peter instructed the man to follow his guardian angel to the place they had prepared for him.
As he followed his guardian angel, the man walked through a most magnificent neighborhood of mansions with crystal glass windows, velvet curtains, fountains, and beautiful flowers. “Wow, this would be a wonderful place to live,” the man exclaimed. However, his guardian angel turned to him and said, “Keep walking!”
Keep Walking
The angel led him to another neighborhood. There were no mansions or fountains here, but there were wonderful ranch homes with beautiful lawns, swimming pools, and tennis courts. “These homes aren’t as beautiful as the others,” the man noted, “but they are still very nice! I could live quite comfortably here!” However, his guardian angel turned to him and said, “Keep walking!”
The man then found himself in a neighborhood of identical small townhouse apartments. “These are not at all as nice as the others. Look how small they are! But then, I wasn’t exactly a saint in my earthly life. I suppose I could survive in one of these.” However, his guardian angel turned to him and said, “Keep walking!”
Your Choice
The angel led him through a large field with overgrown grass and shrubs to the site of a small shack with paper-thin walls and an aluminum corrugated roof. There was no electricity or running water. Inside were a small table, a chair, and a mat. “Oh no! Don’t tell me that this is the place you prepared for me!” the man cried out. “I am so sorry,” the angel said, “but this was the best we could do with the materials you sent us.”
Perfect Happiness
There will be no envy in heaven. We will all be perfectly happy in heaven. As my articles have demonstrated, we all desire to be happy, to get to heaven. God desires our salvation even more than we do; He gave us Christ, He gave us the Gospel, He gave us the Church and the sacraments and He gave us our consciences.
Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide?
For a Catholic simply consulting our consciences is not enough to ensure good judgments. The conscience is our highest interior guide, but it’s not our highest guide, absolutely speaking. The conscience, of course, is not infallible. It can make mistakes, as we have noted, when influenced by such things as ignorance or bad habits. Some of us even know that we don’t know all that we should in order to make good moral decisions.
Catholics have the great gift of the Church that helps us to make certain that our consciences are on the right road. If a conscience should say that it is okay to cheat one’s employees or say that adultery is okay, a Catholic knows better. A Catholic should reason like this: “My Church says that these things are wrong, and the Church has a more direct contact with the Holy Spirit and God and a greater guarantee to the truth than I’ve got. So, if my conscience tells me something is right that my Church tells me is wrong, I feel extremely uncomfortable. Isn’t it likely that I am not reasoning correctly or that I am being misled by some passion or bad habit?”
If the Holy Spirit guides the Church, then why should we trust what seems to be the voice of our conscience instead of trusting the Church? Why should we think that what seems to be our conscience is right instead of accepting the teaching of the Church which has a greater guarantee of divine guidance than we as individuals have?
Starting From Scratch
As Catholics, we have an obligation to share the wisdom of our Church with others; we must all become evangelists. In this day and age, it is not easy. But maybe it never was. We find ourselves in a situation similar to that of St. Benedict. He lived in what we refer to as the Dark Ages, during which there was an almost total moral, religious, and intellectual breakdown of Western civilization. This one man decided to start from scratch. He gathered a few friends with the intention of learning how to be human all over again. As he went about the conscientious practice of virtue, prayer, and work, people began to notice. Before too long, some of these people asked if they could join him. As time went on, more and more people came, at which point St. Benedict told them that the new community was becoming too large. He suggested that they begin a new community close by. Within 100 years, Europe was dotted with these communities. He could not have known the long-term consequences of his simple decision to start from scratch. The communities that flowed from that decision effectively preserved Western civilization and transmitted it into our time.
Dark Ages II
Like St. Benedict, we find ourselves living in the Dark Ages — an age in which there is doubt about, and even rejection of, the existence of moral truth. In this new dark age, the intimate link between freedom and truth has been obscured in the minds and hearts of some, and eclipsed in those of others. The tragedy of this new dark age is not only that many do not know that they are living in darkness, but that many also prefer, and even insist on, living in the darkness of error rather than in the light of the truth. Our “culture of death” flows directly from this new dark age.
New Evangelization
Today, we need to renew our faith in God; we need to increase our devotion to Christ; we need to renew our love of the Church; we need to form our consciences correctly. And we need to go out and spread the Good News to others.
Our mission is to be a “People of Life, a People for Life.” We must uphold the flame of truth in the barbaric darkness. Hopefully, the darkness will not quench it. Hopefully, the flame will precede the “new springtime” of the Gospel of Life, when the Splendor of the Truth will have its everlasting day.
The Love of Christ impels us, and the words of Christ fill us with confidence: “Be not afraid, for I have overcome the world!”
Amen.
