Section 2: The Nature of Conscience

The concept of conscience, being inseparably bound up with that of soul, could not be fully developed until psychology had attained a certain degree of scientific precision. 1. NOMINAL DEFINITION. —The word conscience is derived from the much wider term conscientia, which signifies the state of being aware of one's own actions. Popularly, conscience is often called the voice of God or a manifestation of His will in the hearts of His rational creatures.¹ This conception is substantially correct because conscience acquaints man with the dictates of the divine law, which is a power he may not contemn. But conscience is not always the voice of God. Like any other human judgment it may be erroneous. History proves this without a doubt. As men have at various times held erroneous opinions in other matters,² so one may (by false training or for other reasons) hold erroneous opinions in moral questions. A pagan involved in invincible and therefore pardonable error concerning the secondary precepts of the moral law, might worship idols and torture his foes with a perfectly clear conscience.³

¹ Cfr. St. Bonaventure, Comment. in Sent., II, dist. 39, art. 1, qu. 3, ad 3: "Conscience is like God's herald and messenger. What it says, it does not command of itself, but commands as though from God, like a herald when he publishes the king's edict; and hence conscience has the power of binding in those things which can in some way be done well." (Opera Omnia, Vol. II, p. 907).

² Cfr. R. Seeberg, Gewissen und Gewissensbildung, pp. 6 sqq., 22 sqq.; T h. H. Simar, Das Gewissen und die Gewissensfreiheit, pp. 13 sqq.

³ Cfr. Rom. XIV, 23; John XVI, 2.

2. REAL DEFINITION. —The first real definition of conscience is found in the writings of the Scholastics,⁴ especially Blessed Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas.⁵ a) Aristotle taught that the soul has two faculties, intellect and will, of which the latter is subject to the former. The Schoolmen adopted this theory and defined conscience as an act of the intellect or understanding.⁶ Distinguishing between the speculative and the practical intellect, they assumed a double conscience.

⁴ Cfr. Th. H. Simar, Die Lehre vom Wesen des Gewissens in der Scholastik des 13. Jahrhunderts, I, Freiburg 1885, pp. 5 sqq. —A practical meditation on conscience by a 12th century writer is contained in the anonymous Libellus de Conscientia, reproduced in Migne's Patrologia Latina, CCXIII, 903 sqq. —See also the Liber de Conscientia ad Alcherum of Peter Cellensis (P. L., CCII, 1083 sqq.) and the Tractatus de Interiori Domo sive de Conscientia Aedificanda of an unknown contemporary of St. Bernard (ibid., CLXXXIV, 507 sqq.).

⁵ Albert the Great, Summa de Creat., P. II, De Homine, qu. 69-70; IDEM, Comment, in Sent., II, dist. 5, art. 6; dist. 24, art. 14. —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a, qu. 79, art. 12-13; 1a 2ae, qu. 19, art. 5; De Veritate, qu. 16-17; Comment, in Sent., II, dist. 24. —Cfr. H. Appel, Die Lehre der Scholastiker von der Synteresis, Rostock 1891, pp. 28 sqq.; A. Strobel, Die Lehre des Albertus Magnus über das Gewissen, Sigmaringen 1901, pp. 2 sqq.; F. J. Bruck, Die Lehre vom Gewissen nach Antonin, Freiburg 1909.

⁶ In opposition to the Dominican school, which regarded conscience as an act of the intellect only, the Franciscan theologians, led by Alexander of Hales and St. Bonaventure, conceived it as a moral faculty, based upon the appetitive powers as well as upon the understanding. (Simar, Die Lehre vom Wesen des Gewissens in der Scholastik des 13. Jahrhunderts, I, p. 7; cfr. pp. 10 sqq.).

The speculative conscience (synteresis)⁷ they defined as a habit by which the soul perceives the general principles of right conduct.⁸ In other words, "synteresis is an habitual hold upon primary moral judgments, as, that we must do good, avoid evil, requite benefactors, honor superiors, punish evildoers."⁹

⁷ On the much-discussed term συντήρησις cfr. J. Jahnel, "Woher stammt der Ausdruck Synteresis bei den Scholastikern?" in the Theologische Quartalschrift of Tübingen, 1870, pp. 241 sqq. It owes its existence to a corrupt passage in St. Jerome's Commentary on the Prophet Ezechiel (I, c. 1, n. 10): "The Greeks call it synderesis, that spark of conscience which is not extinguished even in Adam's breast after he was cast out of paradise, and through which ... we perceive that we sin." (Migne, P. L., XXV, 22). The correct form of the word is συνείδησις.

⁸ "Speculative knowledge of universal principles for living well."

⁹ Jos. Rickaby, S.J., Moral Philosophy, p. 137.

The practical or so-called individual conscience is a judgment or dictate of practical reason deciding that a particular action is right or wrong.¹⁰ It is an application of speculative knowledge to concrete facts.¹¹ The process by which reason arrives at the judgment called practical conscience is essentially syllogistic. The major premise (iudicium iuris) is a judgment of the speculative conscience. The minor (iudicium facti) is its application to the particular case in hand. The conclusion is the final judgment as to the moral character of the act under consideration, i. e., the practical conscience itself.

¹⁰ "A judgment or practical dictate of reason by which we judge what here and now is to be done as good or avoided as evil."

¹¹ "The application of knowledge to a particular act."

For example:

Major: To lie is sinful; Minor: To speak so and so would be to lie; Conclusion: Therefore it is sinful to speak so and so; or:

Major: Adultery is forbidden; Minor: What I am about to do is adultery; Conclusion: Therefore what I am about to do is forbidden; or:

Major: I must obey all who command me with lawful authority; Minor: X. commands me here and now with lawful authority; Conclusion: Therefore I must here and now obey X.

This theory is not, however, quite satisfactory. For, in the first place, the operation of conscience does not entirely coincide with that of practical reason. On the contrary, the two are often disproportionate. A man may have a highly developed mind coupled with a dull and unresponsive conscience. Vice versa, the conscience is sometimes very active and delicate in a mind that has little more than the rudiments of intellectual culture. Another defect of the Scholastic theory is that it does not account satisfactorily for the characteristic phenomenon called good or bad conscience, which is a mere sentiment preceding the judgment of reason and causing it to reflect about what it has done or is about to do. b) To remedy this defect, the Scholastics drew a distinction between conscientia antecedens and conscientia consequens. Antecedent conscience is a dictate of practical reason preceding action; consequent conscience follows an action, approving it as right or condemning it as wrong. According to this explanation, what men call bad conscience is simply a judgment of reason condemning an illicit act and its consequences; in other words, it is the perception of, and regret for, a false conclusion and a foolish act based thereon. In matter of fact, however, the so-called pains or qualms of conscience are something more than mere regret over a wrongly drawn conclusion. Nor can the underlying difficulty be removed by conceiving the conscientia antecedens as an act of the understanding and the conscientia consequens as a mere sentiment, for to divide conscience into two essentially different faculties would destroy its unity.

The Scholastic theory of conscience was complemented and perfected by the medieval mystics,¹² who held that deep down in the innermost recesses of the human soul there is a spark of eternal light (scintilla animae), which God Himself has put there to preserve the soul from destruction.¹³ Intellect and will, according to this theory, can be made serviceable to evil; not so the scintilla animae, in which God Himself dwells as the object of mystical contemplation. It is this spark of divine light in the soul that the mystics regard as the true seat of conscience.

¹² Cfr. J. Jahnel, De Conscientiae Notione, pp. 81 sqq.; W. Schmidt, Das Gewissen, pp. 225 sqq.

¹³ Cfr. John V, 18. —St. Thomas, Comment, in Sent., II, dist. 24, qu. 2, art. 3, ad 5; De Veritate, qu. 17, art. 2, ad 3. —St. Bonaventure, Comment. in Sent., II, dist. 39, art. 2, qu. 1, ad 3. —M. Grabmann, "Die Lehre des hl. Thomas von der Scintilla Animae," in the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und spekulative Theologie, Paderborn 1900, pp. 413 sqq.

A strictly adequate definition of conscience is impossible because we do not understand the mysterious nature of the soul. But such a definition is not necessary for our purpose. We can obtain a sufficient knowledge of the nature of conscience by studying its manifestations (a posteriori). Observation teaches that every dictate of conscience is first a judgment of reason concerning the moral character of an act, and secondly a stirring of the will, in the form of a command, admonition or warning, especially an impulse of sentiment in the shape of a reproach or pain. Hence conscience is more than an act of the understanding. It engages all the faculties of the soul, and consequently is not a separate and distinct faculty, but something which lies beneath all faculties, at the very basis of the soul.

We may therefore roughly define conscience as a habit or capacity (habitus) of the three faculties of the soul —intellect, will, and feeling, —by which man is bound to the moral order of the universe, i. e., the will of God; or, in other words, the capacity of applying objective laws to subjective conduct or of regulating man's actions in accordance with the law.

Thus defined, conscience appears as a moral and religious faculty or disposition placed in the soul by God, and developed together with its other faculties. The fact that conscience depends upon the faculties of the soul and is subject to many internal and external influences, explains why it acts differently in different individuals. Conscience itself is never mistaken, but it sometimes makes a wrong application of the primary precepts of morality to individual cases. In its innermost essence conscience, therefore, is "the internal and proximate rule of human conduct," ¹⁴ and to act deliberately against its dictates is always sinful, because such conduct involves a denial of ethical personality, —a sort of moral self-annihilation.

¹⁴ "Regula interna, proxima, sive formalis actuum humanorum."

The first principle of morality, therefore, is this: Always obey your conscience, for to act against its dictates is invariably a sin.¹⁵

¹⁵ "Omne, quod non est ex fide, peccatum est." Rom. XIV, 23. — Cfr. St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. I, n. 55 (ed. Gaudé, I, 25); J. Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. III, pp. 954 sqq.

READINGS. —St. Thomas, De Veritate, qu. 16 and 17. —Th. Slater, S.J., A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, pp. 57 sqq. —Jos. Rickaby, S.J., Moral Philosophy, pp. 135 sqq. —IDEM, art. "Conscience" in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, pp. 268 sqq. —R. Hofmann, Die Lehre von dem Gewissen, Leipsic 1866. —M. Kahler, Das Gewissen, Vol. I, Halle 1878.—M. R. Kabisch, Das Gewissen, sein Ursprung und seine Pflege, Göttingen 1906. —Th. H. Simar, Das Gewissen und die Gewissensfreiheit, Freiburg 1874. —M. Cronin, The Science of Ethics, Vol. I, pp. 448 sqq. —F. Katzinger, S.J., Inquisitio Psychologica in Conscientiam Humanam, Innsbruck 1924.