Conscience question

[searching04]

Ah searching04, the only poster more insulting than sw85, coupled with unbridled vitriol that I have yet to see matched At least he has an excuse because he is a recent convert and is caught on fire with Catholicism

OK, I’ll bite - insulting exactly how? Because I disagree? How is considering someone else insulting and arrogant in their presumptions (rebels and unrepentant sinners) any different than such a poster calling others such with no knowledge of what they do in their lives? How is that not arrogant, no matter how much they present themselves to know about theology?

The whole point is, and you made it nicely, that dissenters need not be here. Unbridled vitriol, really? Again, because I disagree. Amazing. So one is vitriolic if they disagree and passionate and excused if they are a convert? Beating people over the head and being insulting isn’t going to help change minds or hearts, but apparently it is acceptable.

 

[fix]

“My conscience is wrong!” For some people today this seems to be the one possibility that they will not admit - which of course means they are ready to attribute to their own conscience the very quality of infallibility that they deny to the Church’s teaching…

Conscience then remains our guide; but subordinate to the law. That is why the textbooks tell us that conscience is the proximate but not the ultimate rule of right and wrong. It is not the wisest guide we have, nor the highest Court of Appeal we can look to. It is not higher than Natural Law; it is not higher than Revelation; it is not higher than God’s Law.

Conscience

 

[Nate13]

OK, I’ll bite - insulting exactly how? Because I disagree? How is considering someone else insulting and arrogant in their presumptions (rebels and unrepentant sinners) any different than such a poster calling others such with no knowledge of what they do in their lives? How is that not arrogant, no matter how much they present themselves to know about theology?

The whole point is, and you made it nicely, that dissenters need not be here. Unbridled vitriol, really? Again, because I disagree. Amazing. So one is vitriolic if they disagree and passionate and excused if they are a convert? Beating people over the head and being insulting isn’t going to help change minds or hearts, but apparently it is acceptable.

Actually my point was I try not to get caught up about insults from people I don’t know on the internet and instead try to focus on the discussion so we can get somewhere. Also please note I did not say sw85’s post was not insulting. I’m sure it was to many of the posters. I mean really ask yourself though. Is sw85 really trying to insult you and others or is he just being inconsiderate? Unless you truly believe that he is just trying to put people down, and his motives are not to try and bring people to a better understanding it seems a waste of time to keep diverting threads to call him and others out. I know he seeks to give people understanding because I remember that thread he started and the arguments he outlined to show why contraception was immoral.

I used vitriol to describe your posts in general (not so much on this thread) because there is an innate bitterness in all of your criticisms. I don’t believe they are really cruel, but almost every single one of your post is dripping with bitterness. I also have to admit I just like the word vitriol

@fix
Great succinct post.

 

[searching04]

My conscience is wrong!" For some people today this seems to be the one possibility that they will not admit - which of course means they are ready to attribute to their own conscience the very quality of infallibility that they deny to the Church’s teaching…

Conscience then remains our guide; but subordinate to the law. That is why the textbooks tell us that conscience is the proximate but not the ultimate rule of right and wrong. It is not the wisest guide we have, nor the highest Court of Appeal we can look to. It is not higher than Natural Law; it is not higher than Revelation; it is not higher than God’s Law.

This actually is worth looking at. However, LaSainte in post #185 said it best - we are supposed to go against our conscience until it is second nature? Other posts said the church does not demand blind obedience, but in fact, it does. The problem or conflict arises when our conscience is honestly screaming that what we feel and believe we are not wrong, yet we are told to go against it. It would be no different than if the church suddenly decided that Jesus wasn’t the Son of God, or wasn’t in the Eucharist. My heart would be screaming, “Yes, He is” and would be in conflict with the church again.
Would I have to go against my conscience?

Will that happen? No, but the point is on conscience.

 

[ahs]

So the only way to mold your conscience is by going against it until it becomes second nature?

No. The way to properly form your conscience is to mold it to conform to God’s Truth. This may or may not entail going against a poorly-formed conscience and may or may not entail the objective Truth becoming second nature. Sometimes we will have to struggle to accept God’s Truth, sometimes it will come naturally to us, etc… A good way to start, which has been mentioned several times (in several different ways and words) is to practice obedience to God, via obedience to His Son, Jesus Christ, via obedience to the Church that He established on earth and to whom He gave freedom from error in moral Doctrines.

Bookcat has actually posted, more than once in this very thread, the answer to your OP. Post 186 (in which he links other posts that will actually answer your whole question and confusion on concsience).

 

[Bookcat]

In terms a person who is a Catholic:

If there is a conflict …it is conflict within a persons conscience.

Not a conflict between the person and the Church.

The reality of the Church is part of the persons very conscience.

The person is in conflict with themselves.

They need to work to heal this.

 

[Jaaanosik]

I’m not going to try and explain natural law to you here, because it would just further derail the thread. Do a search on the forum and read the Pope’s words. I understand you don’t understand what natural law is or how it fits in the picture but you should know that the 5 years John Paul II spent putting together the theology of the body rely on a heavy understanding of it.

Well, God has created the natural law, and the natural law is manifested in the human person.
Being procreative in a sexual act is the God’s natural law, correct?
But there are other God’s laws that come above that. Just saying.

 

[LaSainte]

The thread creator went there so I will respond Is there not a difference between nourishing our bodies and over-indulging? If you were taking a pill that caused the proper amount of nourishment to reach your body that would be in accordance with natural law. If you were just taking the pills though so you could over indulge that would be immoral. The point of the pill would be to bring something back in order with its proper function.

Sex is for procreation and for unitive bonding. To have sex in a way that frustrates either purpose is immoral. Rape can be incredibly procreative, but it is not unitive thus why we can know it is immoral without even knowing of divine revelation.

The eating example you gave only appears to go against natural law because you are only looking at the surface.

It would be like if I told you we would generate the most tax revenue in the U.S by taxing everyone 100%. You would be like that’s true, but your forgetting the fact that probably almost no one would pay that, every one would rebel, and you would extinguish incentive for business thus lowering the amount of income even out there to tax.

But one would only NEED these pills do that they could eat primarily for pleasure and not worry about gaining weight. If a person consumed a normal amount of calories, it would not be an issue.

Also, we are allowed to eat strictly for pleasure sometimes (I am allowed to binge on Halloween candy now and then), so long as the whole of our diet is ordered toward nutritive eating.

With sex, I would think that the same rules would apply-that so long as the arc of a marriage tends toward procreation, it would not be a problem to use a condom if one really should not get pregnant at a given moment.

Let’s face it, diet pills are the condoms of the food world. They enable us to eat what we want when we want without the usual natural consequences.

So what is the big difference?

 

[ahs]

My conscience is wrong!" For some people today this seems to be the one possibility that they will not admit - which of course means they are ready to attribute to their own conscience the very quality of infallibility that they deny to the Church’s teaching…

Conscience then remains our guide; but subordinate to the law. That is why the textbooks tell us that conscience is the proximate but not the ultimate rule of right and wrong. It is not the wisest guide we have, nor the highest Court of Appeal we can look to. It is not higher than Natural Law; it is not higher than Revelation; it is not higher than God’s Law.

This actually is worth looking at. However, LaSainte in post #185 said it best - we are supposed to go against our conscience until it is second nature? Other posts said the church does not demand blind obedience, but in fact, it does. The problem or conflict arises when our conscience is honestly screaming that what we feel and believe we are not wrong, yet we are told to go against it. **It would be no different than if the church suddenly decided that Jesus wasn’t the Son of God, or wasn’t in the Eucharist. **My heart would be screaming, “Yes, He is” and would be in conflict with the church again.
Would I have to go against my conscience?

Will that happen? No, but the point is on conscience.

Post 186, and the links to other posts within it, actually give wonderful insight.

As to the bolded statement…REALLY?! Did you actually mean to post that as though it could be some reality? How is that statement even relevant? That is so far out in left field…it would not happen…REALLY?!

 

[searching04]

But one would only NEED these pills do that they could eat primarily for pleasure and not worry about gaining weight. If a person consumed a normal amount of calories, it would not be an issue.

Also, we are allowed to eat strictly for pleasure sometimes (I am allowed to binge on Halloween candy now and then), so long as the whole of our diet is ordered toward nutritive eating.

With sex, I would think that the same rules would apply-that so long as the arc of a marriage tends toward procreation, it would not be a problem to use a condom if one really should not get pregnant at a given moment.

Let’s face it, diet pills are the condoms of the food world. They enable us to eat what we want when we want without the usual natural consequences.

So what is the big difference?

:clapping:

This is funny - because I follow Weight Watchers! Diet from food and sex? What do you know ?!

 

[sw85]

So the only way to mold your conscience is by going against it until it becomes second nature? That works for vice too you know.

What I have been saying all along is that conscience, to the extent it is the discernment of the good and adherence of the will to it, is incapable of leading one to sin and error.

Hence if one feels that some evil X is not in fact evil but positively good, that feeling is NOT rooted in conscience. Either one’s reason is not discerning that it is evil or one’s will refuses to follow it – in neither case is conscience in operation.

Hence there is no “going against conscience” by obeying the will of the Church. Such is a metaphysical impossibility. Which is precisely the reason I object to the use of “conscience” in the present catechism: better simply to cut out extraneous variables in the interest of economy and tell people that X is both good and obligatory.

Is self sacrifice, giving up your life, a natural law?

It is in fact SUPERnatural law.

Natural law is one of the most bizarre and frustrating concepts I know of. Basically everything has a nature or a function that is knowable, and to go against that nature or function constitutes sin. Sex is meant for procreation, so to use it in another way or subvert its purpose goes against the natural law and is a sin. Unfortunately, when and where it applies is sketchy. Eating for example, is meant to nourish our bodies, and yet, it is not immoral for me to take pills that cause most of the calories in food to be passed out of my body without absorbing them. I would think this would go against natural law as well, since it subverts the primary purpose of eating, but apparently not.

To address your specific example, I cannot imagine a circumstance under which such would be legitimate. If you have some medical reason for wanting to lose weight or just wish to be healthier, the proper action would be to limit your caloric intake. The example you provide is to my mind akin to bulimia, which is obviously disordered.

 

[Jaaanosik]

“My conscience is wrong!” For some people today this seems to be the one possibility that they will not admit - which of course means they are ready to attribute to their own conscience the very quality of infallibility that they deny to the Church’s teaching…

Conscience then remains our guide; but subordinate to the law. That is why the textbooks tell us that conscience is the proximate but not the ultimate rule of right and wrong. It is not the wisest guide we have, nor the highest Court of Appeal we can look to. It is not higher than Natural Law; it is not higher than Revelation; it is not higher than God’s Law.

Conscience

So let’s assume we have a sequence conscience, Natural Law, Revelation, God’s Law.
Is the Natural Law supposed to be put above the biggest God’s Law?

 

[Jaaanosik]

What I have been saying all along is that conscience, to the extent it is the discernment of the good and adherence of the will to it, is incapable of leading one to sin and error.

Hence if one feels that some evil X is not in fact evil but positively good, that feeling is NOT rooted in conscience. Either one’s reason is not discerning that it is evil or one’s will refuses to follow it – in neither case is conscience in operation.

Hence there is no “going against conscience” by obeying the will of the Church. Such is a metaphysical impossibility. Which is precisely the reason I object to the use of “conscience” in the present catechism: better simply to cut out extraneous variables in the interest of economy and tell people that X is both good and obligatory.

It is in fact SUPERnatural law.

To address your specific example, I cannot imagine a circumstance under which such would be legitimate. If you have some medical reason for wanting to lose weight or just wish to be healthier, the proper action would be to limit your caloric intake. The example you provide is to my mind akin to bulimia, which is obviously disordered.

Do you agree that the biggest God’s Law to love is above natural law?

 

[searching04]

Post 186, and the links to other posts within it, actually give wonderful insight.

As to the bolded statement…REALLY?! Did you actually mean to post that as though it could be some reality? How is that statement even relevant? That is so far out in left field…it would not happen…REALLY?!

Read the last sentence. Of course, it isn’t going to happen and yes I meant to post it, and yes, it is relevant. The point is what if the church came out with something so against our conscience we were forced to question it? Follow it without question? Apparently so.

Yes, I am sure the answer is going to be the church cannot do that because it is led by the Holy Spirit and is unerring, etc. Point is do we follow without question no matter what the church teaches or do we follow our formed conscience (oh, wait, the church tells us what a formed conscience is, too)? The pope came out and called for a world bank. I don’t agree with that in the least on any level, but he is the head of the church and it is a moral issue - am I wrong? I cannot get the news video to open, but there are questions as to whether the church supports occupy wall street (won’t validate their existence with captial letters). Am I supposed to follow that without question as well? Don’t think so in the least. So what is the difference if it is all morals - sex, procreation, “taking care of the least”, conscience?

 

[Nate13]

But one would only NEED these pills do that they could eat primarily for pleasure and not worry about gaining weight. If a person consumed a normal amount of calories, it would not be an issue.

That’s like saying no one should really need NFP because life should be perfect and no one should ever have a reason why they can’t provide for more kids. The fact is we make mistakes, do things we shouldn’t, there are things out of our control, and there are ways we can bring ourselves back into line morally.

Also, as I said in my last post the pills could be used immorally just as NFP can be used immorally. There are moral uses for both though.

Also, we are allowed to eat strictly for pleasure sometimes (I am allowed to binge on Halloween candy now and then), so long as the whole of our diet is ordered toward nutritive eating.

First, off your operating under the assumption that eating is only for nutritive gain. Gaining pleasure from eating is also a purpose of eating. As in sex, sometimes sex is more about the unitive bond than it is about the procreative, but the procreative aspect is still respected. Eating candy does have a purpose besides pleasure although it may be as small a percentage of the purpose as the procreative purpose is during sex while using NFP.

Secondly, your comparing eating to ultimate expression of love between two people. The stakes are much higher and I’m not misusing a piece of candy, I’m misusing a human being. Can you see why this raises the stakes? Piece of candy vs. human being. Its one thing to use a piece of candy, its entirely different to use a human being. Love and Responsibility by JP II discusses this intimately.

With sex, I would think that the same rules would apply-that so long as the arc of a marriage tends toward procreation, it would not be a problem to use a condom if one really should not get pregnant at a given moment.

Let’s face it, diet pills are the condoms of the food world. They enable us to eat what we want when we want without the usual natural consequences.

So what is the big difference?

Answered above.

 

[Nate13]

Do you agree that the biggest God’s Law to love is above natural law?

Are you arguing that God’s laws contradict each other? The only law we truly need as you said is to love God with all our soul, heart, mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves. All other laws are just explanations of how to live this out and are just reiterations of the law above in different forms, natural law included. Natural law is as much given by God as the Ten Commandments are. The Ten Commandments were really just God putting down in writing what was already inscribed in our hearts. How else would people have known how to live before God gave them the Ten Commandments?

 

[Bookcat]

What is Conscience?:

catholicreference.net/index.cfm?id=32755

 

[Nate13]

What is Conscience?:

catholicreference.net/index.cfm?id=32755

In particular this:

“The judgment of the practical intellect deciding, from general principles of faith and reason, the goodness or badness of a way of acting that a person now faces.
It is an operation of the intellect and not of the feelings or even of the will.”

We aren’t Jedi guys. Our consciences are not like the force

 

[sw85]

Damn, and I was trying to stay away.

Yeah, you are insulting. Did it again above. Kind of like sexual harrassment - it is determined by the person on the receiving end, not the one doing it. You don’t get to determine whether you are insulting or not.

This is objectively wrong on both a moral and legal level. For behavior to rise to the level of harrassment it must be OBJECTIVELY offensive to any rational person. “It hurt my feelings” is NOT a basis to file a sexual harrassment lawsuit or else it would become a tool for persecution and abuse.

You’ve asked people why they are here

i.e., I asked what the OP’s intention was in posting this, since she has made abundantly clear that she rejects the Church’s teachings and will not be convinced otherwise. The only conclusion to reach is that she’s hoping someone will point out a loophole in the Catechism she can exploit. And I’m not the first one in this thread to suggest that possibility.

absolutely have hinted people should go be Protestants;

Also wrong. I have said explicitly that if one disagrees with Church teachings one’s options are to assent to the teachings and remain a Catholic or quit the Church. In fact I explicitly said I hope such people choose the former option.

I have also pointed out that some people are employing Protestant logic to justify their disobedience, which again, is hardly the same thing as saying “Go be a Protestant.” My point is that Protestant logic is erroneous and therefore unsuitable to a Catholic.

This kind of emotive persecution complex does your cause no favors – you openly and publicly reject the magisterium of the Church and then accuse everyone who seeks to remind you of your duties of being possessed by the spirit of the Inquisition or something. Quite annoying and highly uncharitable, and yet one more reason why threads like this should be summarily locked.

and have specifically said that those who disagree and question have no right to post.

I have said they have no moral right to express their disagreement with Church teachings – which the Church agrees with.

You only have rights insofar as they are necessary to do your duties. Hence, you have no right to falsehood, error, and sin – and no right to encourage others to them, either.

Hardly “no right to post,” but certainly “no moral right to post in the spirit of attacking the Church.”

As far as merely questioning in the spirit of understanding and good faith, I have said I have no problem. Trying to clarify and comprehend a teaching is one thing, a moral good and (I think) a duty on the part of all Catholics. Attacking and rejecting it altogether is not – it is unreason and ALWAYS sinful.

Obstinate rebels and unrepentant sinners? Really? Do have any idea whatosever what posters here do in their lives? No, you don’t, not in the least.

Publicly attacking and rejecting the teachings of the Church is scandal. Scandal is a mortal sin. Refusing to repent of that sin is rebellion. Persistence in sin is obstinacy. What does it matter what else a person does? This is hardly even assumption, either – it is a fact documented in the pages of this very thread. Good deeds done elsewhere do not make acceptable bad deeds done here.

We ALL sin – this is a fact, of myself included. But when you sin you acknowledge and repent of your error. You do not try to rationalize it away or find ways to indulge them with the approval of “conscience.” Such behavior requires correction – and the firmness of the correction is proportionate to the degree of rebellion and obstinacy. If I am strident in rebuking my brothers and sisters in the faith here it’s only because the rebellion is pronounced and the subject matter is especially grave.

No one likes to have it pointed out when they are doing wrong. But it MUST be done in the spirit of charity.

You assume, and you know what that means, besides being arrogant. You can have all the education in the world (do you?), but it does not mean people will agree with you or that you know them. Obviously, I disagree on things, but I follow them. So am I an unrepentant sinner? Point is you wouldn’t know.

I don’t have to know a person to recognize an evil thing when it’s being done. That’s just a silly statement and in no way corresponds to reality.

For yourself, disagreeing with a teaching but continuing to follow it is not a sin (contrary to what some people here are suggesting). Assenting to Church teachings is the duty of all Catholics.

So if you do in fact following Church teachings it may be the case you are a sinner but it is not the case that you are unrepentant.

By contrast if you come on here and declare that the Church has no authority to teach you or to command that you follow that which is good, you would in fact be sinning – sinning by virtue of rebellion and scandal. And persisting in it would be evidence that you do not repent of that error. Hence I would correct you.

 

[sw85]

Continued from previous post:

I can only imagine Jesus Christ telling people to go away because they question and disagree. Or do you think He’d keep working with them? Might want to consider that.

I am not telling anyone to go away. Again, I said explicitly I would rather Catholics struggling with teachings assent to them, work out their issues in private, and remain Catholics.

But more importantly I would rather people be honest about what they believe and take a stand accordingly. If you think “conscience” overrides all other considerations… well, this is not a Catholic belief. You cannot hold it and be in communion with the Catholic Church. So your options are to either repudiate the belief and be a good Catholic, hold on to the belief and be a bad Catholic, or hold on to the belief and become a good Protestant / some other denomination.

The Church is doing no favors by not telling its parishioners what is required of them, as was done to LaSainte (and, as I am learning, is endemic to the Church – my RCIA experience so far has been suboptimal). It would be better to empty out the churches completely and save a single soul then it would be to fill the pews and damn every last one of them.

How do you know? Murder, obviously. Sodomy? People can argue definitions. Masturbation? Can be part of the whole debate on contraception. I’m sure their are other examples. Point is not everything is equal.

No, people may not argue definitions. These matters have been decided by the Church. You may ask questions and ask for explanations but you may not criticize or suggest the Church is wrong, because Church teachings are inerrant and nonnegotiable. Because the Church was established by Christ and is protected from error by the Holy Spirit, that the gates of Hell may not prevail against it.

Have to ask - you posted above that obeying the church (blindly?)

No. For Heaven’s sake, read my posts. You have a duty to mold your conscience to the teachings of the Church – which NECESSARILY requires that you make an effort to understand them. There is NO reason for anyone to “blindly” follow anything except out of willful and malicious ignorance.

You should not be commenting on your posts if you’re not bothering to read them.

is obeying Christ, and God revealed himself and therefore the church is unerring. So where do our morals and conscience come into play - or do they - with the pope calling for a world bank and seeming to support occupy wall street? Are we supposed to fall in line and not question because he is the pope? It is about morals; he is the head of the church and is supposed to be unerring on issues of morals. So…?

Are you asking me specifically about this issue, or using it as one example in a larger question of how morals and conscience affect our ethical lives?

If the former, I cannot comment as I am not familiar with the Pope’s call for a global central bank (I tried finding the document where it was announced but the only copies at the time were in Latin). Given the media’s tendency to mangle everything the Pope says (remember the supposed “Pope approves condoms for African AIDS crisis” hubbub a while back?) I am naturally suspicious of second-hand reports. But if he declares that the establishment of a centralized monetary authority is a matter of moral theology then I will commit to belief in it. More likely he is simply offering one possible solution to the very real problem of the division of our economic life from our moral life.

If the latter, morals are objective facts. Moral behavior is that behavior which conforms to our nature. And our nature is an objective reality which we are powerless to alter or change. They are therefore not matters of perspective or debate.

People will always question and disagree.

Maybe so. I don’t care. People are free to and ought to ask questions in the spirit of clarification, understanding, and good faith. They are not free, however, to disagree. Disagreement with Church teachings is error – and there is no right to error.

You can post and quote and posture all day. And yes, you can be insulting in your words, all because people are holding their ground like you hold yours. This just may be an area where people agree to disagree. There will always be some.

I have no interest in being lectured about charity by someone who accuses me of “posturing.” I am concerned in good faith for the souls of my fellow Catholics.

The irony is that saying this sort of thing is ACTUALLY making an assumption about me based on knowledge you don’t have, the exact same thing you (falsely) accused me of earlier in your rant. Shame on you.

And repent of your errors!

Ah searching04, the only poster more insulting than sw85, coupled with unbridled vitriol that I have yet to see matched At least he has an excuse because he is a recent convert and caught on fire with Catholicism

For the record you are free to insult me as much as you want as long as it doesn’t get in the way of us having a discussion, and the vitriol is amusing.

Hey now, what have I said that’s been insulting?

I get that I’m strident. Like I said, the spirit of charity requires rebuking unrepentant sinners. We do no one any favors by pussyfooting around that particular duty.