Chapter II. On True And Erroneous Conscience

306. Principle 1. Man is bound to apply serious solicitude toward always having a true or right conscience.

The reason is obvious. For conscience is the proximate norm of morality, which ought to direct our whole moral life. Now man is bound to inquire into the right norm of morality, since otherwise great dangers of salvation arise. Therefore the Angelic Doctor²⁶ says: "The inquiry of reason is necessary before judgment concerning things to be chosen."

The principal means for obtaining a true and right conscience are:

a) Diligence in knowing the laws governing moral life. The highest diligence indeed is not required, but ordinary diligence suffices, which God-fearing men are accustomed to have by attending to the condition of persons and the gravity of the law.

b) The seeking of counsel made among experts, especially if there is question of difficult and unclear matters. Hence, when a doubt exists, a confessor or ecclesiastical superior is to be consulted.

c) Prayer. For God is to be prayed to: "Give me understanding, and I shall learn Thy commandments,"²⁷ and: "Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge."²⁸

d) Removal of impediments, which are disordered passions, depraved habits, the darkness of sins not yet remitted, etc.

²⁶ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 14, a. 1.

²⁷ Ps. 118, 73.

²⁸ Ibid. 66.

307. Principle 2. Man is bound to follow conscience commanding or prohibiting: a) if it is true or right; b) if it is invincibly erroneous.

I said deliberately: commanding or prohibiting; for if conscience permits some act or only counsels it, then there is no strict obligation of following this conscience.

The first part of the principle stated is easily proved; indeed, it is clear per se.²⁹ For since from the things said above it is established that conscience is nothing other than the application of law in a particular case, it follows that, just as a just law commanding or prohibiting obliges, so also the right application of law made through conscience induces a moral obligation. Therefore in this case true and right conscience obliges gravely or lightly, in the same way as the law commanding or prohibiting obliges.

The other part of the principle is proved both from authority and from reason. And first indeed from authority. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees, saying: "If you were blind, you would not have sin; but now you say: Because we see. Your sin remains."³⁰ Here the Savior speaks of spiritual blindness, that is, of an invincibly erroneous conscience, which would have excused the Pharisees if it had truly been present.³¹ St. Paul³² says: "All that is not from faith is sin." St. Thomas³³ and exegetes commonly understand this text not so much of supernatural faith as of belief, persuasion, or conscience, so that its sense is: whatever man does against his own persuasion or conscience is sin. That this interpretation is legitimate follows from the context; for St. Paul speaks in the cited place concerning the eating of foods which are not evil in themselves, but which certain Christians judged to be evil and unclean, as prohibited by the Mosaic law; and then he teaches that one sins gravely who, truly thinking eating of this kind to be gravely illicit, nevertheless eats. - Innocent III³⁴ says: "If he acts otherwise [against conscience], he builds toward Gehenna." The Angelic Doctor³⁵ asserts: "Simply every will discordant from reason, whether right or erring, is always evil," and: "When erring reason proposes something as a precept of God, then to contemn the dictate of reason and the precept of God is the same." - From the authorities brought forward thus far it is abundantly established that man always sins when he acts against conscience.

Reason also manifestly proves the principle stated: a) Everything is formal sin which is against the known rule of morals. But conscience is the proximate rule of morals, as was said above. Therefore whatever is against conscience becomes sin. b) Goodness and malice are taken from the object, not as it is in itself, but as it is proposed by reason or conscience; for the will is a blind power following the guidance of reason and seeking nothing unless proposed by reason, and indeed in that mode in which it is proposed. Therefore if reason or conscience proposes (although invincibly erroneously) an object as morally evil, then the will embracing such an object wills evil and sins formally.³⁶

²⁹ Even Cicero said: "In his whole life it is not fitting that anyone depart a fingernail's breadth from right conscience" (Ep. ad Attic. 13, 20).

³⁰ John 9, 41.

³¹ Cf. also John 15, 22.

³² Rom. 14, 23.

³³ Lect. III in cap. 14 ep. ad Rom. and S. theol. 1, 2, q. 19, a. 5.

³⁴ c. 13, X 2, 13.

³⁵ S. theol. 1, 2, q. 19, a. 5; cf. also De verit. q. 17, a. 4.

³⁶ Cf. Billuart, De consc. a. 2.

308. Corollaries very much to be noted in practice are derived from the principle thus explained.

1. Conscience clearly commanding or prohibiting has been constituted in our soul by God as king or leader, whom not to obey is always unlawful. Hence conscience must be obeyed rather than any created power.

2. He who by erring invincibly thinks that he ought to lie in order to save a friend is bound to lie, and by lying he commits not a formal sin, but only a material one. But if in this case he did not lie, he would commit a formal sin, because he would act against conscience (although erroneous).

3. He who by erring invincibly thinks that today there is a prescribed fast, which nevertheless in reality there is not, and notwithstanding such conviction does not fast, commits a formal sin of disobedience toward the Church, although there is no material injury of ecclesiastical law, since it does not exist. The reason is that he contemns a precept of the Church which he thinks exists.

309. Exceptions. 1. He who posits an act with which he erroneously thinks a penalty is joined, for example, a censure, reservation, etc., indeed sins, but in reality does not incur this penalty. Hence he who certainly but erroneously thinks that some book has been prohibited by the Church under penalty of excommunication, and notwithstanding such conviction reads that book, indeed sins gravely, because he contemns the Church, but he is not excommunicated, because this penalty has not been enacted except against those who read books really and not only putatively prohibited under penalty of excommunication.

2. He who from erroneous conscience thinks that he sins from the involuntary omission of an act impossible for him does not sin in reality; for example, if someone detained in prison were to think that he sins from the omission of Sunday Mass, which in reality he cannot hear because of incarceration, he does not sin, notwithstanding his erroneous conscience. The reason is that this omission is involuntary and no sin is given unless voluntary. Yet the better reason is that no one of sound mind can persuade himself that he is bound to something altogether impossible; and therefore in the case conscience is already not invincibly erroneous, or, if it truly is so, such a man, as scrupulous or demented, is not capable of sin.

310. Principle 3. It is not licit to follow a vincibly erroneous conscience; nor yet is it even licit to act against such a conscience; but the error is to be laid aside before action.

Thus the opinion more common today, to which nevertheless several writers, especially older ones, in some way contradict, such as Billuart (l. c.), John of St. Thomas, etc. A man acting with a vincibly erroneous conscience is never excused from sin, whether he acts according to or against conscience. The reason is that he voluntarily exposes himself to the danger of sinning, which indeed in the case is already sin. Therefore in this case man is bound either to desist from the action or to lay aside the erroneous conscience.³⁷ - But if such danger of sinning is absent, then it is licit to act with a vincibly erroneous conscience. For example, if someone with an erroneous conscience thinks that he ought to hear Mass, he is not bound first to lay aside this vincibly erroneous conscience if in reality he hears Mass; for to hear Mass is a good act. Therefore the following rule is to be observed by him who labors under a vincibly erroneous conscience:

1. Let him lay it aside by seeking the truth through suitable means, for example, through prayer, deliberation, petition for counsel, etc.; 2. but if he cannot lay it aside, let him desist from the action; 3. but if he cannot even desist from the action, let him choose that which is safer.

³⁷ Cf. what was said above in n. 45 sqq. concerning invincible and vincible ignorance.

311. Signs for discerning an invincibly erroneous conscience from a vincibly erroneous one are chiefly the following: let the confessor ask the penitent whether he noticed any indecency in this act, or at least whether conscience dictated to him that investigations concerning the licitness of the act were to be made. But if the penitent denies both, his conscience was invincibly erroneous.

312. Specific moral malice of an act committed against an invincibly erroneous conscience. The sin of one acting against an invincibly erroneous conscience is of the same species and gravity as if he acted against right conscience in the same matter. Therefore St. Thomas³⁸ teaches: "When erroneous conscience dictates that something is to be done, it dictates it under some aspect of good, or as if it were a work of justice or temperance, and so concerning the others; and therefore the transgressor incurs a vice contrary to that virtue under whose species conscience dictates that thing; or if it dictates that thing under the species of a divine precept, or only of some prelate, he incurs the sin of disobedience by transgressing conscience." Hence, for example, he who omits a lie which from invincible error he thinks that he ought to tell in order to save a friend sins against charity or even against justice; he who omits in sacramental confession an objectively indifferent act which from invincible error he thought necessarily had to be declared commits the sin of sacrilege.

Grave or light theological malice. It sometimes happens that a penitent apprehends only in general the malice of some act, not thinking whether the act is gravely or lightly evil, for example, in the reading of depraved books. Then an act of this kind is to be judged by the confessor as grave or light according as the penitent is of lax or God-fearing conscience. For if he is of lax conscience, the presumption stands against him; but if he is of God-fearing conscience, the presumption stands for him.

Admonition. Confessors, preachers, and other directors of souls should observe carefully that they instruct the faithful committed to them rightly and without exaggerations. First, let them not propose as commands properly so called those things which in reality are only counsels or pious customs; for example, let them most urgently recommend morning and evening prayers to the faithful, but at the same time say openly that their omission is not a proper sin per se. Moreover let them avoid all exaggerations by insinuating that something is a grave sin which in reality is only a light transgression. "Hence let it be observed," says St. Alphonsus,³⁹ "into what danger those thrust themselves who, following rigid doctrine, easily condemn men for mortal sin in those matters in which grave malice does not appear by evident reason, thus exposing them to the danger of eternal damnation; and the same must be said of those who easily brand with the mark of laxity opinions which do not seem openly improbable."

• All these things agree with the doctrine of St. Thomas,⁴⁰ who teaches: "Every question in which inquiry is made concerning mortal sin is determined dangerously unless the truth is had expressly; ... the error by which something is believed to be mortal which is not mortal binds from conscience to mortal sin."

³⁸ De verit. q. 17, a. 4 ad 9.

³⁹ Theol. mor. l. 5, n. 52.

⁴⁰ Quodl. 9, a. 15.

313. Scholion. On the moral goodness of an act committed from invincible error. Especially in the eighteenth century it was disputed most sharply among theologians whether invincibly erroneous conscience not only obliges so that to go against it is sin, but also whether to follow it is good, indeed even meritorious. For example, is he who from invincibly erroneous conscience lied not only free from formal sin, but also, by lying, has he performed a good act? That such a man is free from formal sin is certain against Lutherans and Jansenists. For Alexander VIII condemned the proposition (31): "Although invincible ignorance of natural right be granted, in the state of fallen nature this does not excuse one acting from it from mortal sin." But is the act produced from invincibly erroneous conscience truly morally good? - St. Alphonsus⁴¹ calls the affirmative opinion more probable and most common, because, as St. Thomas testifies,⁴² "a human act is judged virtuous or vicious according to the apprehended good to which the will is borne per se, and not according to the material object of the act." Against this opinion Concina⁴³ inveighs vehemently, especially insisting on the adage admitted by all: "Good is from the whole cause, evil from any defect whatever." He also proclaims that it is an intolerable absurdity that someone from a crime, for example, from idolatry committed with invincible ignorance, should merit eternal life. Thus he says: "What is more opposed to common sense than that crimes and horrendous wicked deeds should by a portentous metamorphosis be transformed into virtues, into merit of eternal life? By what power? - Divine? - Far from it. - By what then? Hear and be astonished: by the power of human error. Therefore the error of our mind is another God." - This controversy seems to us to be purely theoretical and to produce no practical usefulness. For each opinion concedes these two things: 1. a material sin committed from invincibly erroneous conscience induces no moral fault; 2. the good intention joined to this work is a virtuous and meritorious work (the other requisites being posited). Therefore the only difference consists in determining whether a materially evil work, namely accepted separately, has good morality or evil morality. Or, so that the matter may be shown in a concrete example: did the Patriarch Jacob, exercising carnal intercourse with Leah, whom he invincibly thought to be his legitimate wife, perform a less good work than if he had performed the same act with his legitimate wife? - Speaking theoretically, Concina's opinion does not seem to us altogether to be despised because of the reasons brought forward by him and because of the authority of St. Thomas, who says: "That which is done against law is always evil; nor is it excused by the fact that it is according to conscience."⁴⁴ Already St. Bernard⁴⁵ discusses this controversy at greater length and concludes: "A depraved intention altogether condemns the good, and a right intention does not wholly excuse the evil. Therefore whether you think evil to be good, which perhaps you do, or good to be evil, which you perform, each is sin." But perhaps one would say more rightly that such a work, evil in itself materially (with the good intention prescinded), is amoral, because it is not voluntary in the genus of morals.

⁴¹ L. c. l. 1, n. 6. R. Beaudouin, O. Pr., De conscientia p. 24; E. Muller, Theol. mor. I, § 72; many moderns teach the same opinion.

⁴² Quodl. 3, a. 27.

⁴³ De consc. diss. 1, c. 5. Concina's opinion has obtained few followers. Cf. La Croix, Theol. mor. lib. 1, n. 14-34.

⁴⁴ Quodl. 8, n. 13. Yet these words can rightly be understood of merely objective malice. Cf. Billuart, De conscientia a. 2, obj. 4.

⁴⁵ De praecept. et dispensat. c. 14 (Migne, Patr. lat. 182, 883).