What conscience is not
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The document discusses human freedom and conscience. It states that God has granted humans everything needed to achieve their purpose, including freedom. True freedom means doing what is good, truthful, and beautiful, and leads to self-actualization rather than self-destruction. The document then discusses how conscience serves to help humans discern right from wrong and apply moral laws to specific situations. It aims to correct misconceptions that conscience is simply doing what feels right individually, is the voice of God, is just feeling guilt, or is external rather than an inherent human capacity.
What conscience is not
- 1. God have granted us everything that is necessary to help us achieve our purpose and goal – to be truthful, good, and beautiful (Principle 4 – Purpose of the Human Persons as a Created Reality ). One of the necessary things granted us to help us achieve our goal is human freedom. 10/10/12 1
- 2. True freedom means to do what is true, good, and beatiful. True freedom leads to self-actualization, not to to self-destruction or destruction of other people in community.
- 3. How do we judge the goodness or evilness of our moral acts? What enables us to discern if our acts make us more human, more truly free? What should we do to grow in this capacity of discernment and judgement? Our questions point to God’s gift of Human Conscience 10/10/12 3
- 4. Conscience serves precisely this purpose: 1. Conscience is our inherent sensitivity to basic human needs and values supported by rules and laws. 2. Conscience is our capacity to discern the good from the evil, the moral from the immoral. 3. Conscience is our ability to apply universal moral laws to particular moral situations. 10/10/12 4
- 5. What is conscience? Objectives: 1. Critique and correct some common misconceptions about conscience; 2. Discuss the nature of human conscience and how conscience actually operates; and 3. Reflect on how we can educate and courageously follow our conscience. 10/10/12 5
- 6. What Conscience Is Not – Wrong Understanding of Conscience 1. “It’s between me and my conscience” • Conscience is simply doing things “ my way,” without considering the good of others • This notion presumed that conscience is being able to perform an act that you personally and individually feel good about, regardless of how it affects other people. • “ What matters most is not whether what I did was morally good or evil but that I was personally the one who made the decision” – individualistic notion of conscience. 10/10/12 6
- 7. What Conscience Is Not – Wrong Understanding of Conscience 2. “Conscience is God’s voice within us” • This notion presumed that conscience is a separate, supernatural, other-worldly voice of God that we hear with our inner ear, haviong no connection with our own knowledge and power of reasoning and discernment. • We naturally relate the voice of our conscience to God, first, because God has created us as moral persons, and second, because God is the perfect norm of goodness. 10/10/12 7
- 8. What Conscience Is Not – Wrong Understanding of Conscience 3. “ Conscience is the feeling of guilt” • This notion presumed that conscience is our feeling of guilt when we do something wrong. • Conscience is reduced and equated to the feeling of guilt. • Does this mean that our conscience is automatically correct once we no longer feel guilty? 10/10/12 8
- 9. What Conscience Is Not – Wrong Understanding of Conscience 4. “ Conscience is an external reality” • This notion presumed that conscience is an another existing reality outside of ourselves. • This implies that folowing one’s conscience is simply an act of personal deliberation without reference to any objective moral standard. 10/10/12 9
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