Conscience

Aquinas

(10 mins)

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St Paul
• “The person who launched the concept into the
currency of our language was St Paul’. Neville
Symington The Blind Man Sees page 42

• “They show that the requirements of the law are

written on their hearts, their consciences also
bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes
accusing them and at other times even
defending them.” Romans 2:14-15

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Four Sources
• God – synderesis
• Reason - judgement
• Upbringing – Freud
• Evolution – Dawkins

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Aquinas
• Synderesis

• Conscientia

The orthodox view is that wherever two courses of

action are possible, conscience tells me which is
right, and to choose the other is sin”. Bertrand
Russell (1974:190)

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Sexual Lust – an example
• “It is not the knowledge of the universal, but only
the evaluation of feelings, which is not so
excellent, and so is dragged about by passion.”
(Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, Book 7,
lecture 3, paragraph 1352
• Link with Paul in Romans 7 “I do not do what I
want”…

Image The Punishment of Lust by Giovanni Segontanii, wikicommons

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Vincible Ignorance
• Morally blameworthy
• If we are able to know
• This ignorance can often be imputed to personal
responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes
little trouble to find out what is true and good, or
when conscience is by degrees almost blinded
through the habit of committing sin.” (Gaudium et
Spes, 16). In such cases, the person is culpable for
the evil he commits. (Catechism 1791)

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Invincible Ignorance
• “If the ignorance is invincible or the moral subject is
not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil
committed by the person cannot be imputed to him.”
Catholic Catechism
• “Invincible ignorance” is a state in which people —
such as pagans, non-Christians and children — are
ignorant of Christ's message as laid out in the Gospels
not because they refuse to believe, but rather because
they've not yet had an opportunity to hear and
experience it.

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Implications
• Natural Law is understandable by everyone who has attained the age of
reason, due to synderesis
• No mentally-capable adult anywhere in the world and living at any epoch
or culture can ever say, “I didn't realize it was wrong to kill
someone/steal from someone/have sex with someone who wasn't my
wife/cheat someone”.
• If there is no objective truth, then the statement “There is no objective
truth” is automatically false.

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Conclusions - Catechism
• 1780 The dignity of the human person implies and requires uprightness of
moral conscience. Conscience includes the perception of the principles of
morality (synderesis); their application in the given circumstances by practical
discernment of reasons and goods; and finally judgment about concrete acts yet
to be performed or already performed. The truth about the moral good, stated in
the law of reason, is recognised practically and concretely by the prudent
judgment of conscience. We call that man prudent who chooses in conformity
with this judgment.

• 1781 Conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed. If
man commits evil, the just judgment of conscience can remain within him as the
witness to the universal truth of the good, at the same time as the evil of his
particular choice.

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Discuss
• “Conscience is the voice of God within us”. Discuss
• “Only the vincibly ignorant can be blamed for their actions’. Discuss

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