Second Part: On the Virtues Annexed to Prudence Considered in the Formation of Conscience

46. Object of the treatment. - The virtues joined to prudence are given for forming a right judgment concerning particular operations; here chiefly the judgment of moral conscience comes to be attended to. Good counsel (of eubulia) is ordered to right practical judgment (synesis or gnome), through which it is terminated, just as judgment is ordered to command or precept, which judgment commits to execution. Therefore, just as command is the proper and chief act of prudence itself, so the right judgment of conscience, which is formed from the counsel prerequisite and according to which command must be made, is a certain proper or chief act of the annexed virtues which prudence uses for its own proper end. Whence, after we have spoken of prudence itself, now one comes to speak specifically of the virtues annexed to it, considered in the practical formation of conscience.

1. Thus John of St. Thomas, on I-II, q. 18-21, disp. 12, n. 14 and 16; Suarez, on I-II, disp. 12, n. 8; Laymann, Moral Theology, on conscience, c. 2, n. 3; Mercorus, Basis of the Whole of Moral Theology, a. 1; Contenson, Theology of the Mind and Heart, diss. 3, spec. 1, q. 1; Gotti, Scholastic-Dogmatic Theology, on conscience, dub. I, XV, and 2; Billuart, Theology, on human acts, diss. 5, a. 1; Patuzzi, Moral Theology I, on conscience, a. 1, VI; and among more recent authors: Beaudoin, Treatise on Conscience, p. 9; Prummer, Moral Theology I, n. 303; Aertnijs-Damen, Moral Theology I, n. 48bis; Garrigou-Lagrange, in Revue Thomiste, 1925, p. 346; Dumas, Moral Theology I, thesis XX, B.

2. St. Thomas does not treat specially of the virtues annexed to prudence; nevertheless he is accustomed to do this for the virtues pertaining to the other cardinal virtues. This perhaps can be explained from the fact that they are ordered to operating together with prudence, and not to exercising offices separately; also from the fact that they are immediately concerned with particular and contingent things, and therefore pertain less to science but more to a certain art of directing life. But since special questions about conscience and its formation have now obtained a great place in practical theology, therefore they must be specially attended to and specifically considered; and indeed in the treatise on prudence and the virtues annexed to it, to which they pertain as to their proper place. Cf. those things which we wrote in Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 1926: What place must be assigned to the treatise on Conscience?

But it is sufficient to consider antecedent conscience concerning things to be done in the future, nor is it specially necessary to regard consequent conscience concerning past deeds: for from antecedent conscience an act is easily judged after it has been done, because according to the same habits and according to the same principles an examination is made concerning deeds already done, and counsel and judgment concerning things to be done.

47. What we suppose known from the general part of moral science. - From the general part of moral theology, which treats of moral conscience in general, we have already learned several things, to be briefly recalled in the present place, namely:

1. What antecedent moral conscience is. It is a proximately practical judgment concerning the honesty of an action, that is, a judgment of the practical intellect dictating concerning the goodness or malice of those things which here and now, that is, in the individual, all circumstances considered, are to be done; or affirming that an act in particular and in the concrete is licit or illicit and therefore to be placed or omitted by us. Therefore conscience is a judgment not merely speculative concerning the truth of the thing alone, but practical concerning the honesty of the action, and indeed proximately practical, so that it may shine before the operation here and now to be placed and direct it, that it may be honorable.

2. That conscience, since it is a judgment, is an act, not a permanent habit, and therefore is distinguished:

a) From synderesis (sens des évidences; bevattelijkheid der grondbeginselen of grondregels), which is the habit of first practical principles (for example, Good is to be done, evil is to be avoided), and from moral science (kennis der zedeleer), which is the acquired habitual cognition of general conclusions deduced from first principles concerning the goodness and malice of acts in the genus and in the abstract (for example, theft is evil); conscience is an actual judgment, namely a particular conclusion deduced from first principles concerning the goodness and malice of an act in particular and in the concrete, such as it is here and now with the end and all circumstances to be placed by the agent (for example, this act is theft and now is to be avoided by me).

Synderesis and moral science are habits which form a speculatively practical judgment concerning the objective and material morality of our acts according to themselves, or in the genus and in the abstract (what in the genus is good or evil), and remotely direct practice; conscience is a practically practical judgment concerning the subjective and formal morality of our acts in particular and in the concrete (what is here and now to be done and licit for me), and proximately directs our acts.

b) Likewise from law, which is a universal norm permanently imposed by the legislator, and known through synderesis or moral science, concerning the goodness and malice of acts in the genus, while conscience is the application of law made by each private man to a particular case or act here and now to be placed, by which he judges whether that act is conformed to law or not. Whence law is called the remote and objective rule, conscience the proximate and subjective rule of our acts. Namely, the morality of an act is not from the law as it is according to itself, but as it is applied to us through the knowledge and judgment of conscience.

c) Likewise from prudence, which is the cardinal virtue inclining to three acts or functions: to rightly inquiring into and estimating all circumstances of the concrete act; to judging well concerning its suitability and morality, and forming a right conscience; and most of all to commanding that which the judgment of conscience dictates. But right conscience is some act of prudence, formed through the mediation of the annexed virtues.

Conscience, nevertheless, depends upon all the aforesaid things, because each of them concurs in forming it rightly, as will be said later (for example, n. 56).

1. "It is clear how synderesis, natural law, and conscience differ; because natural law names the universal principles themselves of right; synderesis names the habit of them; but conscience names a certain application of natural law to something to be done by way of a certain conclusion." St. Thomas, on II Sent., d. 24, q. 2, a. 4.

2. Judgment is prepared by eubulia; it is elicited by synesis (or gnome) under the direction of prudence, which commands.

3. That conscience is the proximate and subjective rule of all human acts, obligating not by its own force and from itself, but by force of the divine precept, because it applies the objective and remote rule, or law, to a particular case. Namely, it is the intimation and as it were promulgation of law in second act as to the act here and now to be placed. The force of obligating belongs to law; but conscience applies law; therefore the same obligatory force belongs to conscience as belongs to law. And because every obligation of law must be derived from the eternal law of God, conscience is commonly called the voice of God.

"Conscience," says St. Bonaventure, II Sent., d. 39, a. 1, q. 3, "is like God's herald and messenger; and what it says, it does not command from itself but commands as from God, as a herald does when he publishes the edict of a king; and hence it is that conscience has the virtue of binding." Hence to act against a preceptive conscience can never be licit: What is done against conscience builds unto gehenna. Thus Innocent III, in c. 13, X, 2, 13.

But just as law commanding, prohibiting, permitting, counseling is distinguished, so also conscience is distinguished.

4. But in order that it may be the rule of our acts, it must have two qualities: namely, it must be at once right and certain:

a) on the part of the object it must be right; for a rule and measure cannot be falsified, but must be adequate or true and right; whence conscience must rightly apply the law and thus be at least practically true or conformed to right appetite (of the due honorable end), so that an act conformed to conscience is truly honorable and conformed to the eternal law, the supreme rule of morality;

b) on the part of the subject it must be certain: for a rule and measure cannot be ambiguous but must be certain; otherwise man could not be certain concerning the honesty of his actions to be placed, and thus would perpetually be exposed to the proximate danger of formally sinning.

These things were fully demonstrated in the general part and will be more evident from the things to be said below.

48. Matter to be treated and its division. - These things having been posited, since a right and certain conscience cannot always be had at once and easily, it must now be investigated how one must prudently proceed in practice to form a right and certain conscience; whence we shall speak of the various states or species of conscience in special, of the mode of forming conscience in the individual states, and of the mode of sinning as to conscience, by not rightly forming it or by acting against it.

But all defective states are reduced to three categories: defect of rectitude or truth, defect of certitude, defect of truth and certitude at once. Whence we must speak in three chapters:

1. on the mode of forming a right conscience for removing error;

2. on the mode of forming a certain conscience for taking away uncertainty;

3. on the mode of forming a conscience at once right and certain, in a case of uncertainty and error at once.

The first concerns the formation of right conscience: 1. on the obligation and means of solicitously forming a right conscience; 2. on the species of conscience from the part of the object or rectitude: a. on true conscience; b. on invincibly erroneous conscience; c. on vincibly erroneous conscience; 3. on the practical formation of right conscience in oneself and in others.

The second concerns the formation of certain conscience: 1. on the obligation and means of sufficiently forming a certain conscience; 2. on the species of conscience from the part of the subject: a. on negatively doubtful conscience; b. on positively doubtful conscience; c. on opinative or probable conscience; d. on the right use of probable opinions; 3. on the practical formation of certain conscience in oneself and in others; 4. on the sin of one acting against conscience.

The third concerns the formation of a conscience at once right and certain, that is, on the species of conscience from the part of the object and subject at once: a. on perplexed conscience; b. on lax conscience; c. on scrupulous conscience.

In this order we do not consider separately the individual annexed virtues: for eubulia is connaturally exercised together with the others, because judgment supposes the deliberation of counsel and the deliberation of counsel is terminated in judgment; but synesis and gnome proceed in like manner in the formation of the judgment of conscience. Nevertheless the first part chiefly pertains to eubulia, because rectitude of judgment depends especially upon preceding deliberation (St. Thomas, q. 51, a. 2, ad 2; a. 1, ad 1); the second part looks to synesis (or gnome), because certitude is a quality of judgment (q. 51, a. 2, ad 2); in the third, all the annexed virtues are considered together.