The 5th dubium: the conscience

[Ender]

The voice of the conscience is actually a feeling, a sense, or intuition, which is why it is said to be of the heart.

This is not how the church understands it. The conscience is not separated from the intellect.
The judgment of conscience is a practical judgment…This first principle of* practical reason is part of the natural law**…But whereas the natural law discloses the objective and universal demands of the moral good, conscience is the application of the law to a particular case…The universality of the law and its obligation are acknowledged, not suppressed, once reason has established the law’s application in concrete present circumstances. (Veritatis splendor #59)*

Consequently, I’ve never really accepted the notion of a formation of conscience, since such a formation is most definitely of the intellect rather than of the “heart”.

Her different understanding of conscience is why the church teaches that it can and must be formed.64. The words of Jesus just quoted also represent a call to form our conscience, to make it the object of a continuous conversion to what is true and to what is good.

A person is always responsible for his actions. I believe a sinful act occurs when a person willfully does not follow the certain judgment of his conscience.

We all accept that when a person does something his conscience opposes he has culpably sinned. The question was whether a person who does something with a certain conscience can be held in some cases to have culpably sinned as well.

The moral law? Yes, I’d say so if by the Moral Law we mean the teachings of the Church. The law inscribed by God on man’s heart is natural law…

Let’s talk about: “*the “divine law”, the universal and objective norm of morality.” *(VS #60). Surely you would accept that whatever God inscribes on man’s heart would conform to the divine law. I think you would also agree that what the church teaches purports to be the divine law, so the question is: when the certain conscience disagrees with church doctrine which is more likely to be correct?

My understanding is that the conscience can err when there is some disturbance. This is what Cardinal Ratzinger has described as “the stifled anamnesis of being”. The fault then lies at a much deeper level. This can be very serious, as it is with the sociopath and psychopath–those deaf to the voice of conscience.

Errors of conscience are much simpler than this. Take the issue of contraception. Either it is objectively sinful or it isn’t, but there are tens of millions of Catholics who use it believing it is not as well as tens of millions who don’t because they believe it is. One group of tens of millions of ordinary people are acting on an erroneous conscience.

Rationalization is not the result of the certain judgment of conscience at all. It is a psychological phenomenon. But the moral law of the Church is not really the same thing as the natural law inscribed by God on man’s heart. The one is of the intellect and greatly elucidated, the other is of the heart and akin to intuition, as in a feeling.

But surely you cannot believe that God gives man one set of moral laws and gives the church a conflicting set. There is one divine, objectively valid, moral law, and if God is the author of “the natural law inscribed…on man’s heart” as well as “the moral law of the Church” they cannot conflict with one another.
*…conscience expresses itself in acts of “judgment” which reflect the truth about the good, and not in arbitrary “decisions”. The maturity and responsibility of these judgments — and, when all is said and done, of the individual who is their subject — are not measured by the liberation of the conscience from objective truth, in favour of an alleged autonomy in personal decisions, but, on the contrary, by an insistent search for truth… *(VS #61)
If the truth was fully known innately there would be no need to search for it.

Ender

 

[Ender]

If personal conscience directly violates moral or Church law, is that not reason to be suspicious of devilish delusion?

If nothing else it would seem to eliminate the possibility of the “certain” conscience.

Ender

 

[Ender]

This is thread has been helpful to me. So to summarize and make sure I understand: we owe obeisance to our conscience only because it’s within our conscience that God has really inscribed morality. Ergo, we are all free to disregard Church doctrine and teaching because there’s no need for it: we all know what’s right or wrong for us.

In honesty, I was solidly Catholic until the AL discussion began. After reading through these forums and listening to Framcis speak against clericalism and dogmatics (what President Obama might have referred to as people clinging to their Bibles), I am probably leaving the Church and Christianity in general. The time I spend in Church and teaching RE would be better spent doing good works as the Church has nothing to offer.

If you believe that “we are all free to disregard Church doctrine and teaching because there’s no need for it: we all know what’s right or wrong for us” then you are probably right that the Church has nothing to offer. But why do you assume this position is valid? That’s precisely what this debate is about. I certainly don’t accept that position, and I reject it precisely because of what such a position implies: the church is not who she says she is and we have no need of her.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Which is kinda ridiculous. Everybody always likes to use this stuff when talking about squishy stuff, but go ahead and apply that to heavier stuff like murder or warfare.

Most of the arguments in favor of the primacy of the conscience pertain to sexual sins. I don’t think I’ve seen it applied to things like torture, lying, and cheating.

I mean, when I came back to the church ones of my stumbling blocks was the death penalty. But I figured, “welp, if I want to be Catholic with all the rest, guess I should just shut up and color.”

But now, hey, my conscience has always told me that some people just need killin’, so I guess I can go back to thinking the death penalty doesn’t get used enough.

I want to be cautious about sending this thread down a rabbit hole, but the church has always accepted that the State has a legitimate right to employ capital punishment. The current objections are practical, not moral.

Ender

 

[ARSpade]

Most of the arguments in favor of the primacy of the conscience pertain to sexual sins. I don’t think I’ve seen it applied to things like torture, lying, and cheating.

That’s been noted. I find it kinda creepy, honestly, that all of this is so laser focused on sex. But I’ve noticed more and more people pointing out this can be applied to literally anything.

I want to be cautious about sending this thread down a rabbit hole, but the church has always accepted that the State has a legitimate right to employ capital punishment. The current objections are practical, not moral.

Ender

I just use it as an example of the rabbit hole. But I have noted that while the church does accept that on paper, it certainly does not get pushed that way by the clergy.
I guess I should use torture as my snarky example instead of capital punishment.

 

[JPUSC]

This is thread has been helpful to me. So to summarize and make sure I understand: we owe obeisance to our conscience only because it’s within our conscience that God has really inscribed morality. Ergo, we are all free to disregard Church doctrine and teaching because there’s no need for it: we all know what’s right or wrong for us.

In honesty, I was solidly Catholic until the AL discussion began. After reading through these forums and listening to Framcis speak against clericalism and dogmatics (what President Obama might have referred to as people clinging to their Bibles), I am probably leaving the Church and Christianity in general. The time I spend in Church and teaching RE would be better spent doing good works as the Church has nothing to offer.

You and me both, brother.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

This is thread has been helpful to me. So to summarize and make sure I understand: we owe obeisance to our conscience only because it’s within our conscience that God has really inscribed morality. Ergo, we are all free to disregard Church doctrine and teaching because there’s no need for it: we all know what’s right or wrong for us.

In honesty, I was solidly Catholic until the AL discussion began. After reading through these forums and listening to Framcis speak against clericalism and dogmatics (what President Obama might have referred to as people clinging to their Bibles), I am probably leaving the Church and Christianity in general. The time I spend in Church and teaching RE would be better spent doing good works as the Church has nothing to offer.

If those were truly the only reasons you belonged to the Church for that may well be a good thing in the short to medium term.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

If personal conscience directly violates moral or Church law, is that not reason to be suspicious of devilish delusion?
.

This sort of reasoning will find devilish delusion in anything methinks.
A certain level of blameless ignorance is simply a fact of life.
Formation of conscience takes a lifetime.
The important thing is to keep dialoguing and reflecting when we recognize our view on a particular issue seems at odds with Church teaching.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

That’s been noted. I find it kinda creepy, honestly, that all of this is so laser focused on sex. But I’ve noticed more and more people pointing out this can be applied to literally anything.

I just use it as an example of the rabbit hole. But I have noted that while the church does accept that on paper, it certainly does not get pushed that way by the clergy.
I guess I should use torture as my snarky example instead of capital punishment.

Yes it can, depending on the culture in question.

Donald Trump was just yesterday saying he would bring back torture, he sees it as a good thing in some cases.

That doesn’t surprise me in the least. The US has a gun culture and an obliviousness to violence that the rest of the civilised 1st world finds appalling.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

If you believe that “we are all free to disregard Church doctrine and teaching because there’s no need for it: we all know what’s right or wrong for us” then you are probably right that the Church has nothing to offer. But why do you assume this position is valid? That’s precisely what this debate is about. I certainly don’t accept that position, and I reject it precisely because of what such a position implies: the church is not who she says she is and we have no need of her.

Ender

Myself I know the difference between a loving yet wise mother who realizes time is a better teacher than space… and a army general who holds the reverse and believes pain is the best teacher.

But then I had a good, warm family upbringing…I am not sure if that can be said of all posters here who seem to see the Church’s role as keeping their dark unruly and somewhat uncontrollable passions and proclivities in check by somewhat blind faith in external authority figures.
That certainly is a role of the Church, but one of training only as St Paul says.
If we never see the need to move beyond this we are cannon fodder for totalitarianism as Card Ratzinger says in speaking of the primacy of conscience.

The more pertinent issue here is that conscience seems so vestigial in some that they cannot quite understand what it is or how it is different from rationalization or self delusion.
Best for such to just obey Church teaching blindly for themselves and perhaps refrain from
looking into the windows of other people’s properties as they might see things they do not understand and get unnecessarily disturbed .

Like riding a bike…you know when you’ve twigged…the uninitiated just have to follow very primitive instructions from dad on the sidelines and keep trying until they get the hang of it.

 

[RCinMT]

If you believe that “we are all free to disregard Church doctrine and teaching because there’s no need for it: we all know what’s right or wrong for us” then you are probably right that the Church has nothing to offer. But why do you assume this position is valid? That’s precisely what this debate is about. I certainly don’t accept that position, and I reject it precisely because of what such a position implies: the church is not who she says she is and we have no need of her.

Ender

There are several people, yourself included, who are much more steeped in theology than I am. In fact, clearly, I’m not even a novice–I know nothing.

With that said, I have to believe people who do know better than I, including the pope. It seems that all of the interpretations of the catechism of the catholic church and church doctrine point to one fact: doctrine, teaching and what one believes are all irrelevant in the light of what one feels. The church cannot possibly make truth claims with the provision that the truth claims are only true if one feels it’s so.

Catholics are now left with the following concept: the only thing one has to believe is true, really, are the truth claims that on their face are the most absurd: that a wafer and wine are the body and blood of God incarnate whose body ascended from earth over 2000 years ago. Moreover, the catholic church should sell off all of its holdings and buy small plots of land and build small shacks with drive through windows where a person dispenses communion without question.

-What’s that point of gathering to hear words that one is free to disagree with?
-Why bother with prayers or the profession? The profession should exclude any reference to the catholic church because belief in that institution is optional or else I don’t know what exactly one is expressing belief in when one utters the words “I believe in one catholic and apostolic church”. One is certainly not expressing belief in its teachings so…what? That the physical structures and hierarchy exist? Well who doesn’t believe that: it’s object and observable fact!

 

[ARSpade]

That doesn’t surprise me in the least. The US has a gun culture and an obliviousness to violence that the rest of the civilised 1st world finds appalling.

Eh, I’m not worried about that.

I mean, sure, gun homicides in 2010 killed 11,000 Americans, but on the other hand the enlightened civilized 1st worlders in the Netherlands euthanized 4050 people in the same year (and then one must consider population ratios).

 

[EIF5A]

Eh, I’m not worried about that.

I mean, sure, gun homicides in 2010 killed 11,000 Americans, but on the other hand the enlightened civilized 1st worlders in the Netherlands euthanized 4050 people in the same year (and then one must consider population ratios).

I had no idea number of euthanasia was that high…

 

[JPUSC]

There are several people, yourself included, who are much more steeped in theology than I am. In fact, clearly, I’m not even a novice–I know nothing.

With that said, I have to believe people who do know better than I, including the pope. It seems that all of the interpretations of the catechism of the catholic church and church doctrine point to one fact: doctrine, teaching and what one believes are all irrelevant in the light of what one feels. The church cannot possibly make truth claims with the provision that the truth claims are only true if one feels it’s so.

Catholics are now left with the following concept: the only thing one has to believe is true, really, are the truth claims that on their face are the most absurd: that a wafer and wine are the body and blood of God incarnate whose body ascended from earth over 2000 years ago. Moreover, the catholic church should sell off all of its holdings and buy small plots of land and build small shacks with drive through windows where a person dispenses communion without question.

-What’s that point of gathering to hear words that one is free to disagree with?
-Why bother with prayers or the profession? The profession should exclude any reference to the catholic church because belief in that institution is optional or else I don’t know what exactly one is expressing belief in when one utters the words “I believe in one catholic and apostolic church”. One is certainly not expressing belief in its teachings so…what? That the physical structures and hierarchy exist? Well who doesn’t believe that: it’s object and observable fact!

Believe in love.

youtu.be/Nq7us5Lf5IU

 

[Thomas_White]

This is not how the church understands it. The conscience is not separated from the intellect.
The judgment of conscience is a practical judgment…This first principle of** practical reason is part of the natural law**…But whereas the natural law discloses the objective and universal demands of the moral good, conscience is the application of the law to a particular case…The universality of the law and its obligation are acknowledged, not suppressed, once reason has established the law’s application in concrete present circumstances. (Veritatis splendor #59*)*

The voice of conscience, not the practical judgment of the intellect.

Her different understanding of conscience is why the church teaches that it can and must be formed.64. The words of Jesus just quoted also represent a call to form our conscience, to make it the object of a continuous conversion to what is true and to what is good.

I disagree with your interpretation. Human nature, that which is innate at birth, cannot be formed by future learning. This concerns nature and nurture, and they are different things. Are we to suppose it is God’s law inscribed on man’s heart that can be formed by man?

We all accept that when a person does something his conscience opposes he has culpably sinned. The question was whether a person who does something with a certain conscience can be held in some cases to have culpably sinned as well.

Yes, of course.

Let’s talk about: “*the “divine law”, the universal and objective norm of morality.” *(VS #60). Surely you would accept that whatever God inscribes on man’s heart would conform to the divine law. I think you would also agree that what the church teaches purports to be the divine law, so the question is: when the certain conscience disagrees with church doctrine which is more likely to be correct?

Again, the voice of conscience is not the same thing as the subsequent judgment of conscience. The one is of the heart, the other the head.

Errors of conscience are much simpler than this. Take the issue of contraception. Either it is objectively sinful or it isn’t, but there are tens of millions of Catholics who use it believing it is not as well as tens of millions who don’t because they believe it is. One group of tens of millions of ordinary people are acting on an erroneous conscience.

That the judgment of conscience can err is not disputed. We know the Church teaches that contraception is wrong, but we do not know the consciences of tens of millions of people. Cardinal Kasper said before the synod that the rejection of Humanae Vitae by so many millions is already a virtual schism. I agree with Cardinal Kasper that this is not settled and is something the Church, in some way, will have to come to terms with in the near future.

But surely you cannot believe that God gives man one set of moral laws and gives the church a conflicting set. There is one divine, objectively valid, moral law, and if God is the author of “the natural law inscribed…on man’s heart” as well as “the moral law of the Church” they cannot conflict with one another.
…conscience expresses itself in acts of “judgment” which reflect the truth about the good, and not in arbitrary “decisions”. The maturity and responsibility of these judgments — and, when all is said and done, of the individual who is their subject — are not measured by the liberation of the conscience from objective truth, in favour of an alleged autonomy in personal decisions, but, on the contrary, by an insistent search for truth… (VS #61)
If the truth was fully known innately there would be no need to search for it.

Ender

This is complex. Dei Verbum teaches that there is a growth in the understanding of Apostolic preaching that continues to develop until the end of time. In other words, what we would call objective truth is not yet the Absolute Truth. Whether Absolute Truth can even be objectively know by man is questionable, given the limits of human language and human reason.

The disagreement here is important. It is necessary to understand that we live in the temporal world of change. It is a process that continues to unfold throughout history, and there is no point in time where it can be said that revelation is complete. That Truth could be already complete is the “static” understanding that Pope Francis has said is an obstacle and which he has on a number of occasions criticized. The understanding of moral law in its complexity and detail continues to develop through the ages.

 

[RCinMT]

If those were truly the only reasons you belonged to the Church for that may well be a good thing in the short to medium term.

Snarky comments and back handed insults not withstanding, you still cannot explain your position other than an appeal to feelings. Truth is truth or else it’s not truth. The church claims to possess truth because it was founded by Christ, has tradition passed down from His apostles and is guided by the Holy Spirit. Its says it teachings and doctrine are divinely guided and yet we are now told that individual people are in fact free to disregard or dispute the veracity of these truths on the basis of their own strong feelings.

Forgive the ignorant like me but I cannot consent to something being the truth…unless somebody feels very strongly that it is not.

 

[Ender]

There are several people, yourself included, who are much more steeped in theology than I am. In fact, clearly, I’m not even a novice–I know nothing.

As a convert one of the things I have come to appreciate about Catholicism is that if you want to know what the church teaches you can look it up, and you don’t have to be conversant in everything to understand some things very well. The information is out there if you look for it.

It seems that all of the interpretations of the catechism of the catholic church and church doctrine point to one fact: doctrine, teaching and what one believes are all irrelevant in the light of what one feels. The church cannot possibly make truth claims with the provision that the truth claims are only true if one feels it’s so.

It may seem that this is the line being pushed, but does it seem reasonable to you? Is this really what you think the church teaches? In fact she has a very different understanding of truth. (From Fides et Ratio):**…the truth made known to us by Revelation is neither the product nor the consummation of an argument devised by human reason. (15)
**
Whether we admit it or not, there comes for everyone the moment when personal existence must be anchored to a truth recognized as final, a truth which confers a certitude no longer open to doubt. (27)

…what is communicated in catechesis is not a body of conceptual truths, but the mystery of the living God. (99)
Does this really support the idea that truth is whatever one believes it to be? That idea cannot be tied to anything the church actually teaches.

Ender

 

[Ender]

The voice of conscience, not the practical judgment of the intellect.

According to JPII: “*The judgment of conscience is a practical judgment…” *This is not my opinion on the matter, it is what the church teaches.1778 Conscience is a judgment of reason…
You might want to reconsider your understanding of what the conscience is.

I disagree with your interpretation. Human nature, that which is innate at birth, cannot be formed by future learning. This concerns nature and nurture, and they are different things. Are we to suppose it is God’s law inscribed on man’s heart that can be formed by man?

I didn’t give you my interpretation; I cited what JPII said, and what he said was that it was Jesus himself who calls us to form our consciences.

Again, the voice of conscience is not the same thing as the subsequent judgment of conscience. The one is of the heart, the other the head.

Do you mean the voice of conscience tells us what to believe and the judgment of conscience is the determination of how that belief is to be applied in a particular situation? Can the voice of conscience err, or only the judgment of conscience? Is it the voice of conscience that can tell us to ignore church doctrine?

In other words, what we would call objective truth is not yet the Absolute Truth.

Can objective truth be known, and if so, how? It cannot be known from the conscience alone or there would not be such great divisions over moral issues like contraception, but if the conscience cannot supply it, what is the origin of the knowledge of objective truth?

That Truth could be already complete is the “static” understanding that Pope Francis has said is an obstacle and which he has on a number of occasions criticized. The understanding of moral law in its complexity and detail continues to develop through the ages.

It is one thing to assert that our understanding is incomplete, but quite another to state that what was believed true yesterday is believed not to be true today. This comes very close to saying truth cannot be known since we can have no trust that what we believe now won’t be repudiated in the future.

Ender

 

[Thomas_White]

Myself I know the difference between a loving yet wise mother who realizes time is a better teacher than space… and a army general who holds the reverse and believes pain is the best teacher.

But then I had a good, warm family upbringing…I am not sure if that can be said of all posters here who seem to see the Church’s role as keeping their dark unruly and somewhat uncontrollable passions and proclivities in check by somewhat blind faith in external authority figures.
That certainly is a role of the Church, but one of training only as St Paul says.
If we never see the need to move beyond this we are cannon fodder for totalitarianism as Card Ratzinger says in speaking of the primacy of conscience.

The more pertinent issue here is that conscience seems so vestigial in some that they cannot quite understand what it is or how it is different from rationalization or self delusion.
Best for such to just obey Church teaching blindly for themselves and perhaps refrain from
looking into the windows of other people’s properties as they might see things they do not understand and get unnecessarily disturbed .

Like riding a bike…you know when you’ve twigged…the uninitiated just have to follow very primitive instructions from dad on the sidelines and keep trying until they get the hang of it.

.

Excellent post. I also had a warm family upbringing–during the pre-Vatican II era–and from my earliest memories the importance of conscience was firmly taught–and it was simply to know right from wrong, without need of clarification, by listening to one’s conscience. Considering the uproar we now see about the role of conscience, one wonders if a later generation has any clear understanding of the role of conscience. My understanding of it was learned in a traditional Catholic way, both at home and school–through Catholic education from kindergarten through high school by members of Catholic religious orders, including Catholic priests. Its overarching importance was always stressed, and it was thought it was enough for us at six-years of age to know whether or not we ought to receive communion with first going to confession. Absent such a background, I would guess that many no longer have a clear understanding of conscience and perhaps don’t even hear the internal promptings of conscience–and thus their misunderstanding. For it is hardly that a person may do as he pleases.

It is astonishing to me that anyone would question their faith, and even talk of leaving the Church, as the result of what is their misunderstanding of the role of conscience. I would agree it is best for them to “just obey Church teaching”.

 

[JPUSC]

Snarky comments and back handed insults not withstanding, you still cannot explain your position other than an appeal to feelings. Truth is truth or else it’s not truth. The church claims to possess truth because it was founded by Christ, has tradition passed down from His apostles and is guided by the Holy Spirit. Its says it teachings and doctrine are divinely guided and yet we are now told that individual people are in fact free to disregard or dispute the veracity of these truths on the basis of their own strong feelings.

Forgive the ignorant like me but I cannot consent to something being the truth…unless somebody feels very strongly that it is not.