Question One: On the Obligation and Means of Solicitously Forming a Right Conscience

49. Thesis. In order to act prudently, man is bound to employ serious solicitude for inquiring into and always having a right and true conscience.

It is proved: 1. Conscience is nothing other than God's herald and messenger. But every diligent herald ought altogether to report nothing other than the truth committed to him by the one commanding. Therefore every man is obligated to employ serious diligence so that his conscience faithfully report the laws established by God, which rule the moral life.

2. One who is bound to observe laws is bound to employ diligence for knowing and inquiring into them, because it is a means altogether necessary for observing them in his actions; but if he did not diligently inquire, he would be in ignorance that is vincible and culpable. But conscience is nothing other than knowledge, the intimation of law in second act, and the application of law to a particular act. Therefore man, who is bound to observe laws, is bound to having a true and right conscience, by which the law is known in second act and applied to particular acts. - It is confirmed: Any law chiefly obligates to knowledge of itself; whence the adage: The law of acting imports the law of knowing.

50. The diligence required in the formation of conscience is not the greatest and extraordinary, by employing all possible means (for example, by consulting all the learned of the city and afterward by going to other provinces): that would be an intolerable burden, and would give place to perpetual anxieties, disturbances, and scruples. Rather, ordinary and moral diligence suffices, which alone is accommodated to human nature and which prudent and God-fearing men are accustomed to have in a similar affair, with attention to the conditions of persons and the gravity of laws and other circumstances of place, time, etc. Whence greater diligence is required the graver the matter is, both in itself (for example, for divine law than for human law), and in its consequences (for example, if there is harm for the neighbor); the more cultivated the person is and the greater means he has for investigating the truth; the more he is obligated from office to knowing something or procuring good or avoiding evil; the more the reasons seem of greater weight; the more the matter admits of greater delay, etc.

Thus for the ordinary uneducated man it suffices to consult the parish priest or confessor; for the theologian and confessor greater diligence must be employed, by his own study and by consulting several authors.

51. Means of arriving at a right and true conscience. - The following are accustomed to be enumerated:

a) one's own consideration and cognition of moral science, proportioned to the state and condition of the agent, for acquiring understanding of the thing presently to be done: for man has reason so that he may direct himself. For this there is required sincerity of soul in the desire and study of truth, so that man not seek his own advantage or utility, or indulge cupidity or passion, but intend to please God in his acts;

b) consultation of experts (especially superiors), useful for the learned, but necessary for others; to this also look the example of good and God-fearing men operating thus without scruple. Let the learned man, namely, consult more learned men or also equals, such as he would consult in a grave temporal business; let the unlearned man consult especially superiors, for example the parish priest. For this, docility is required;

c) prayer, so that God may grant light and grace: for it is a question of cognition to be acquired for acting rightly in order to salvation; whence the counsel of the Holy Spirit is sought;

d) removal of impediments which impede the perception of practical truth, namely, of evil habits, passions, prejudices. This mortification is altogether necessary, because the practical judgment of reason, because of an evil inclination of soul, often deflects from the truth.

These means must be employed not indeed with the greatest diligence, but with moral diligence of the sort which prudent men use in their own affairs.

1. "Sincere conscience, which is without duplicity of intention, proceeds from a pure heart, namely, one purged of vices (I Tim. I, 3), and from a good conscience, that is, according to Bernard, one whose reason is not deceived, nor greatly perverse." St. Antoninus, Summa Theologica, p. I, c. X, § V, col. 185.

2. Cf. II-II, q. 180, a. 3, ad 4.

52. Observation. - He who is negligent in inquiring for the formation of a right conscience sins by the sin of precipitation.