Article I. On The Notion Of Conscience

301. Notion. The name conscience is used in diverse ways. Its principal significations are the following:

1. The common knowledge of several persons. (Mitwissen.) In this sense Cicero uses the word conscience, saying: "Do you not see that your conspiracy is now held bound by the consciousness of all these men?"¹

2. The act by which our soul perceives its own affections. (Bewusstsein.) This perception has for its object either sensitive actions (sensitive consciousness or common or intimate sense²) or intellectual actions (intellective consciousness). Each kind of conscience is called psychological conscience,³ concerning which philosophers treat.

3. Notice or memory. In this sense St. Paul writes: "By the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every conscience of men before God," and again: "But I hope that we are manifest also in your consciences."⁴

4. An innate readiness for knowing the first moral principles. This acceptance of conscience is not to be recommended, because this innate readiness is better called with the scholastics synteresis.⁵ It can more easily be admitted that conscience is a certain habitual knowledge of moral obligations (Gewissensanlage); in this sense we speak of a tender, scrupulous, lax conscience, etc., having before our eyes a certain habit or state of soul.

5. The judgment of the practical intellect, dictating from common principles concerning the goodness or malice of some act to be done by us (or already done). This is moral conscience; it is elegantly called the knowledge of the heart, and concerning it we shall now treat in this whole tract. The individual parts of this definition are explained:

It is said, 1°: judgment, because conscience is not a power nor a habit, but an act,⁶ which indeed is elicited by the power of the intellect through the mediation especially of the habit of Christian prudence. For conscience is nothing other than the application of science or knowledge to some particular fact. And this application of science is a judgment. Moral conscience performs two things, namely, before action (through a judgment concerning its goodness or malice) it urges one on to good and deters from evil; after the action has been perpetrated it punishes the evil action with remorses, which in Sacred Scripture are called the "worm" (of conscience); but a good action it rewards with spiritual joy and the sweet peace of the soul. All these functions, however, are acts and not habits or powers.⁷

In vernacular languages conscience signifies habit rather than act, and therefore there is speech about a habitual conscience that is scrupulous, tender, lax, etc., as was already said above in n. 4. Hence one must attend lest confusion arise.

It is said, 2°: of the practical intellect. The subject of conscience is not the will (as Henry of Ghent and others think, especially Protestants), but the intellect, and this as practical. For the act of conscience is not volition or nolition, nor a mere speculative apprehension, nor a suspension of assent, nor an opinion, but a practical dictate concerning some particular act either to be done by us or already done. Hence, for example, conscience does not judge concerning speculative truths, as for instance concerning the Trinity, concerning the validity of the sacraments, etc.

It is said, 3°: dictating from common principles. For conscience supposes and ought to suppose as true the common principles either of faith or of natural reason, and applies them to the particular case. Therefore conscience by no means judges concerning the natural or divine law itself, but only judges whether an act to be done by us or already done is conformable to existing just laws. It also follows that conscience is by no means autonomous (as Kant and his followers will), and that that liberty of conscience proclaimed by many moderns is false, which would be an altogether independent arbiter of good and evil.⁸

It is said, 4°: concerning the goodness or malice of some act to be done by us (or already done). For conscience is the subjective rule of morals. For whatever is judged by conscience as conformable with just laws is a subjectively good act, or at least not evil; but whatever is estimated as discordant from law is subjectively evil, although perhaps taken objectively it has nothing of evil.⁹ - The proper and primary office of conscience is to judge concerning an act to be done by us; for conscience is the rule of acts to be done by us. Consequently, however, it also pertains to conscience to judge concerning an act already perpetrated by us, as is clear from the words of St. Thomas cited above. In this sense in the Epistle to the Romans 2, 15 conscience is said to render testimony to man, their thoughts among themselves accusing or also defending.

¹ Oratio 1 in Catilinam 1, 1.

² Cf. S. theol. 1, q. 78, a. 4 ad 2; Zigliara, Sum. Phil. critica l. 2, c. 1, a. 3.

³ Cf. S. theol. 1, q. 79, a. 13. In this article the Angelic Doctor excellently describes both psychological and moral conscience: "Conscience is said to bear witness, to bind or urge on, or also to accuse, or also to gnaw with remorse or reprove. And all these follow upon the application of some knowledge or science of ours to those things which we do. This application indeed takes place in three ways: in one way according as we recognize that we have done or not done something, ... and according to this conscience is said to bear witness. [Behold psychological conscience.] In another way it is applied according as through our conscience we judge that something is to be done or not to be done; and according to this conscience is said to bind or urge on. [Behold antecedent moral conscience.] In a third way it is applied according as through conscience we judge that something which has been done was done well or not done well; and according to this conscience is said to excuse or accuse or gnaw with remorse." [Behold consequent moral conscience.]

⁴ 2 Cor. 4, 2; 5, 11.

⁵ Cf. S. theol. l. c.

⁶ S. theol. I, q. 79, a. 13.

⁷ To the point the Angelic Doctor writes excellently: "According to the mode of application by which knowledge is applied to an act, so that it may be known whether the act is right or not, there is a twofold way: one, according as through the habit of science we are directed toward doing or not doing something. In another way, according as an act, after it has been done, is examined according to the habit of science, whether it is right or not right. ... But according to each mode of application we use the name conscience. For according as science is applied to an act as directing it, according to this conscience is said to urge on, or induce, or bind; but according as science is applied to an act by way of examination of those things which have already been done, so conscience is said to accuse or gnaw with remorse, when that which has been done is found to disagree with the science according to which it is examined; but to defend or excuse, when that which has been done is found to have proceeded according to the form of science." De verit. q. 17, a. 1.

⁸ Cf. Pius IX, Syllab. prop. 3, 4, 56, 57.

⁹ Cf. below n. 302 at the end and 307 sqq.

302. Scholion. On the difference between conscience, synteresis, moral science, prudence, and natural law. In order that the definition of moral conscience may appear still more clearly, it is helpful to compare it with synteresis, moral science, prudence, and natural law.

Synteresis¹⁰ is the habit of the first moral principles, whose act is to dictate in general that good is to be done and evil omitted, or, as Blessed Albert the Great¹¹ says: "Its act is twofold, namely inclination to good and murmuring against evil." But it belongs to conscience to judge in a particular case what is to be done or omitted. Conscience can err, but synteresis never can.¹² Synteresis is beautifully named by St. Jerome and especially by the scholastics of the thirteenth century the "spark of conscience," the "little fire"; for synteresis is as it were a little fire kindled by the Creator Himself in our intellect; a little fire derived from the divine light itself according to that word of Psalm 4: "The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, has been signed upon us"; a little fire shining and burning: shining and showing the general principles of morals; burning, that is, impelling to good and drawing back from evil. But this spark is never extinguished, neither on this earth, when man becomes foul in sins, nor in heaven, nor in Gehenna. Hence St. Thomas¹³ says: "The spark of reason cannot be extinguished while the light of the intellect remains; but the intellect is never taken away through sin." This synteresis remaining in the damned is the primary cause of the so-called "worm," which does not die; for it always murmurs against the evil perpetrated and impels to good, which nevertheless because of the obstinacy of the evil will is also always rejected.¹⁴

Moral science deduces from principles objective conclusions, which are its proper object; but conscience is something altogether subjective, which can agree or disagree with moral science. Therefore in some men there is moral science rather great with a depraved conscience; but in others there is an excellent conscience with rather small moral science.

Prudence is a virtue and therefore a habit; but conscience is an act, as has already been said. There are three acts of the virtue of prudence, namely to take counsel, to judge, to command.¹⁵ The act of prudence which is to judge coincides with right conscience, to which it also belongs to judge concerning an act to be done or already done; but the act of prudence which is to command is antecedent conscience.

Natural law is a participation of the eternal law in a rational creature and therefore includes the objective principles of morality; but conscience applies these principles in order to judge concerning an act to be done or omitted. - St. Thomas briefly gathers this whole doctrine, saying: "It is clear how synteresis, natural law, and conscience differ; because natural law names the universal principles themselves of right; but synteresis names the habit of them; and conscience names a certain application of natural law to something to be done by way of a certain conclusion."¹⁶

Note. Although conscience differs from the enumerated norms, nevertheless it depends on them, because each one of them concurs in forming it; this becomes clear in this way: Synteresis proposes a general principle, for example, every moral evil is to be avoided. Moral science and natural law teach that fornication is something morally evil and therefore to be avoided. Then prudence adds: the action which here and now is proposed to be done is truly fornication. Finally conscience dictates that this action is absolutely to be avoided. From these things it appears that nothing prevents the judgment of conscience from being called the conclusion of a certain syllogism, in which synteresis and the other things are after the manner of premises. Therefore St. Thomas says:¹⁷ "Conscience is completed as by a certain particular syllogism."

Conscience thus described is the subjective rule to which human actions are to be conformed; for it is as it were the herald or voice of God, intimating and applying the divine law to us. This indeed is beautifully expressed by St. Bonaventure:¹⁸ "Conscience is like God's herald and messenger; and what it says, it does not command from itself, but commands as from God, just as a herald when he publishes the edict of a king." Hence it also follows that we must always follow conscience clearly commanding. Therefore Innocent III¹⁹ says forcefully: "Whatever is done against conscience builds toward Gehenna"; and St. Thomas²⁰ teaches: "Every will discordant from reason, whether right or erring, is always evil, so that he who acts against conscience sins." But I said: that man is bound to follow conscience clearly commanding; for if conscience does not command, but only counsels, or if the command is not so clear, as is accustomed to happen in the scrupulous, then the dictate of conscience does not oblige in that way.

¹⁰ Authors do not agree whether synderesis or synteresis should be written. Likewise it is not established whence this name synteresis, which is first employed by St. Jerome (In Ezech. 1, 7 [Migne, Patr. lat. 25, 22]), was taken. Perhaps it is a copyist's error for syneidesis. "Synteresis is the capacity, inseparably joined with the use of reason, for the binding grasp of the fundamental moral laws" (cf. Renz, Die Synteresis nach dem hl. Thomas vi).

¹¹ S. theol. 2, tr. 16, q. 99, m. 2, a. 3. The same is taught by St. Thomas, De verit. q. 16, a. 2.

¹² Blessed Albert, De creat. 2, q. 71, c. 2; cf. also St. Thomas l. c.

¹³ 2, dist. 39, q. 3, a. 1. Cf. De verit. q. 16, a. 3.

¹⁴ Cf. S. theol. 1, 2, q. 85, a. 2 ad 3. Blessed Albert and Alexander of Hales teach similar things, even if they do not agree concerning the function of synteresis in the other life.

¹⁵ S. theol. 2, 2, q. 47, a. 8.

¹⁶ 2, dist. 24, q. 2, a. 3.

¹⁷ Quaest. disput. de veritate q. 17, a. 2.

¹⁸ 2, dist. 39, a. 1, q. 3 ad 3. Already by Socrates conscience was beautifully called daimonion.

¹⁹ It is found in c. 13, X 2, 13.

²⁰ Quodl. 3, q. 27.

303. Scholion. Errors concerning the nature of moral conscience. Although all, even ancient and modern pagans, admit the existence of moral conscience in man, nevertheless very many have erred concerning its nature. Among almost innumerable errors the following seem to be the more principal:

1. Conscience is something pertaining to affection, or it is the act of some special ethical sense, which in English is called "moral sense." Thus Shaftesbury and all who defend moral subjectivism.

2. Conscience is nothing other than an effect of education and human intercourse, and therefore is very changeable according to the diverse grades of civilization. Thus Herbert Spencer, Robert Owen, and others.

3. Conscience is a certain illusion of the spirit; indeed an evil conscience is a certain disease of the soul. Thus Friedrich Nietzsche and other moral Nihilists.

There is no leisure to refute individually these and other errors concerning the nature of conscience. For they all remain refuted together from the true nature of conscience explained above.