Section 1: The Existence of Conscience

The existence of conscience is a fact known to every man through his immediate consciousness.

The terms conscience and consciousness, though much alike, have distinct meanings. “In English,” says Father Rickaby, "we have done with a Latin word what neither the Latins nor the French have done: we have doubled the term, making 'conscience' stand for the moral department and leaving 'consciousness' for the universal field of objects about which we become aware." ¹ When, therefore, we say that the existence of conscience is attested by consciousness, we mean that every man is immediately aware of the fact that he has a conscience. This is true of uncivilized and barbarous as well as of civilized human beings. By all, conscience is acknowledged as a moral power and one of the mainstays of the social order. Cicero, Seneca, and other pagan writers extolled it as the rule and guide of life, though their conception of it was crude and not altogether correct.

¹ Jos. Rickaby, S.J., in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, p. 268.

The existence of conscience is taken for granted throughout the Old and New Testaments.² The former speaks of conscience as heart (καρδία), and devotes special attention to the pangs of an evil conscience. The name συνείδησις (conscientia) itself occurs only once in the Old Testament; ³ in the New it is used repeatedly, though never by Christ Himself. St. Paul expressly distinguishes conscience from the natural law, of which it gives testimony, and describes it as the unconditional rule of morality.⁴

² Cfr. J. L. Mosheim, Sittenlehre, Vol. III, Helmstadt 1743, pp. 210 sqq.

³ Wisd. XVII, 11.

⁴ Rom. II, 14-15; XIV, 23; cfr. 2 Cor. I, 12. —St. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps., 56, n. 14: "Did the persecutors [the pagans] conquer, and were the martyrs conquered? Far from it. Seek the glory of the martyrs with God; seek the pit of the pagans in their stricken conscience: for there is the pit into which the impious man falls—in an evil conscience." (Migne, P.L., XXXVI, 670).—IDEM, ibid., II, 30, s. i, n. 8: "You can flee whatever you wish, O man, except your conscience. Enter your house, rest upon your bed, enter into your inmost parts: within you can possess nothing to which you may flee from your conscience if your sins gnaw at you." (P. L., XXXVI, 234).

Conscience, being common to all men and inborn in all, must be part of human nature, and, therefore, created by God,⁵ not, as the Materialists maintain, evolved by education, training, habit, environment or economic causes.⁶ For the same reason conscience is not autonomous. Its voice, says St. Thomas, is nothing else than the manifestation of the divine law to man.⁷ The inspired account of the temptation of our first parents proves this.⁸ "The idea of good and evil," says a modern non-Catholic writer, "was given to man before the fall. It is a prerequisite of free-will, which could not perform its functions without that concept. An ancient tradition aptly places the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Paradise.⁹ Good and evil existed before man was seduced. Conscience began to speak in him the moment he became aware of his liberty, for from that moment he was able to judge himself and his actions as being either good or bad." ¹⁰ What we call a guilty conscience (i. e., evil concupiscence) did not, of course, exist before the fall of our first parents, but is a consequence of original sin which still affects their descendants, though its malign influence is largely offset by grace and the blessings of the atonement.¹¹

⁵ Cfr. Tertullian, Adv. Marcionem, I, c. 10: "The soul is earlier than prophecy; for from the beginning conscience is God's gift to the soul, the same and no other among Egyptians, Syrians, and the people of Pontus." (Ed. Leopold, Vol. III, p. 52).

⁶ Cfr. Th. Elsenhans, Wesen und Entstehung des Gewissens, Leipsic 1894, pp. 149 sqq., 204 sqq. —G. Carring, Das Gewissen, pp. 40 sqq., 64 sqq.

⁷ St. Thomas, De Veritate, qu. 17, art. 3: "Since conscience is nothing other than the application of knowledge to an act, it is evident that conscience is said to bind by the force of a divine precept." — Ibid., art. 4, ad 2: "A dictate of conscience is nothing other than the arrival of a divine precept at the person who has conscience."

⁸ Gen. III, 1-4. Cfr. F. Delitzsch, System der biblischen Psychologic, 2nd ed., Leipsic 1861, pp. 133 sqq.

⁹ Gen. II, 9.

¹⁰ R. Seeberg, Gewissen und Gewissensbildung, Erlangen 1896, p. 15; cfr. p. 71.

¹¹ Cfr. St. Augustine, De Gencsi ad Liter am, XII, c. 34, n. 65: "Not only the third heaven, whatever that may be—which assuredly is something great and sublimely glorious—but also within man himself a certain joy of a good conscience is paradise." (Migne, P. L., XXXIV, 482). —IDEM, Enarr. in Ps., 45, n. 9: "Deo sedes est conscientia piorum.'' (P.L., XXXVI, 520). —IDEM, Enarr. in Ps., 53, n. 8: "As conscience is a great punishment of the impious, so conscience itself is a great joy of the pious. For this is our glory, says the Apostle (2 Cor. I, 12), the testimony of our conscience." (P. L., XXXVI, 625).

READINGS.—St. Thomas, De Veritate, qu. 16 and 17.—P. Ewald, De Vocis συνειδήσεως Vi ac Potestate Commentatio, Leipsic 1883, pp. 20 sqq.—I. Jahnel, Ueber den Begriff Gewissen in der griechischen Philosophie, Glatz 1872.—IDEM, De Conscientiae Notione, Berlin 1862.—Th. H. Simar, Das Gewissen und die Gewissensfreiheit, 2nd ed., Freiburg 1902.—L. Lacotte, Traité de la Conscience, Paris 1905.—E. Janvier, Exposition de la Morale Catholique, Vol. II, pp. 217 sqq.—J. H. Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, pp. 104-118.—Jos. Rickaby, S.J., art. “Conscience” in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, pp. 268 sqq.—Sabetti-Barrett, Compendium Theologia Moralis, 27th ed., pp. 35 sqq.—A. Sweens, Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis, 2nd ed., pp. 315 sqq.—A. Lehmkuhl, Theologia Moralis, 11th ed., Vol. I, pp. 73 sqq.—J. Mausbach, Catholic Moral Teaching and its Antagonists, New York 1914, pp. 131 sqq.—E. Müller, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 5th ed., pp. 270 sqq.—A. Vermeersch, S.J., Theol. Mor., Vol. I, pp. 289 sqq.