When Did the Conscience Originate?
When Did the Conscience Originate?
A Question
I read an opinion by MacIntosh stating that man did not have a conscience before the Fall, since he did not have knowledge of evil, because evil was only known after the Fall. Adam, when God created him, was in a state of purity in which he did not know evil. Therefore, the conscience came into existence with the Fall, and since the Fall man has had a conscience that distinguishes between good and evil. And the first fruits of the conscience were that Adam hid behind the trees out of fear.
So, is it true that man was without a conscience before the Fall?
The Answer
First: MacIntosh is one of the leaders of the Plymouth Brethren.
Therefore, his words should be taken with caution. As for the fact that man did not know evil except after the Fall, we have no objection to that. But the conscience has many benefits that are not limited to knowing evil. And we will discuss together what MacIntosh mentioned.
1- Evil does not have an independent existence, but rather is the absence of the corresponding good:
Lying is the absence of truthfulness. Adultery is the absence of chastity. Cruelty is the absence of mercy and compassion. Hatred is the absence of love. Thus all evil consists of negatives. And the first man did not have knowledge of these negatives.
2- But man at least knew that the words of the serpent were contrary to the words of God.
For God forbade eating from the tree, saying: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from it …” (Gen 2:17). While the serpent enticed them to eat from the tree. God says: “In the day that you eat from it you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). And the serpent says: “You will not surely die” (Gen 3:4).
So it is clear that there is a contradiction between the words of the serpent and the words of God, and that what the serpent was calling for was against God’s word and in disobedience to it. Whatever the name of this disobedience—which Adam and Eve did not know—it was in any case disobedience. It is true that Adam and Eve did not know all the details of the evil that is in the world, but they at least knew that God had forbidden eating from the tree. Indeed, Eve repeated the commandment in more detail when she said: “God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” Thus she knew that eating from that tree was disobedience to God.
3- Here I would like to make two observations:
A- If man did not distinguish at all between the command of God and the deception of the serpent, God would not have punished him.
God’s punishment of Adam and Eve indicates that they knew. This is clear in the Lord’s words to Adam: “Because you have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’ …” (Gen 3:17). Thus He punishes him here because he disobeyed His command. Therefore Adam knew that he had not obeyed God and that he was subject to punishment.
B- If the first man did not distinguish at all, we would say that he had no intellect.
And this is completely unacceptable, because he was created in the image of God, and among the elements of that image is the intellect. The intellect is one of the elements of the conscience by which one discerns. If he were without intellect, he also would not have been punished, for one who lacks discernment is not punished. The clarity of Adam’s intellect and discernment appears in his words after the creation of Eve: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Gen 2:23).
By the intellect, then, man distinguished that eating from the tree was disobedience to God.
And since he had intellect, he had understanding, and therefore he had discernment.
And in his conversation with God, he did not say, “I did not know,” because he did know.
And when he hid, that was not because his conscience was born at that moment and he realized that he had sinned. No. Rather, he said: “Because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Gen 3:10). And how did he know that he was naked?!
By eating from the tree, he descended from the spiritual level to the material and bodily level, and thus he knew that he was naked.
And by eating from the tree and disobeying God, he lost the divine image in which he was created, and thus he knew that he was naked. Or let us say that when sin entered human nature, it began to corrupt, and thus he lost his original simplicity and knew that he was naked.
Therefore, his knowledge that he was naked is not evidence of the birth of the conscience, but rather evidence of the beginning of the corruption of human nature.
And the evidence of this corruption is that, psychologically, he began to fear; physically, he began to know that he was naked; and spiritually, he began to flee from God.
As for the conscience that discerns, before sin he was able to discern that eating from the tree was against God’s commandment. And he must also have known that listening to the voice of his wife in that matter was also against the divine commandment. Therefore, God began His punishment of him with the words: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten …” (Gen 3:17).
Thus, he did have a conscience that discerned, but the scope of that conscience was narrow because of limited knowledge.
Man today knows countless evils, whereas Adam knew none of them. Also, today man knows evils through action, practice, and experience, while Adam had none of this knowledge at all, because he was pure and simple. All that he knew was God’s commandment not to eat from the tree.
The human conscience today has greatly expanded in its scope with the increase of knowledge.
It has come to exercise the characteristics of discernment on a wide scale, as well as the characteristics of reproach and punishment. There is no doubt that the reproach of conscience did not exist for Adam before the Fall, because he had no sin for which his conscience would reproach him. Likewise, the conscience urges toward good, and the first man used to do good spontaneously because of his holiness. When he fell, the conscience began to exercise its role in urging toward good.
Man had a conscience, with latent properties within him, which were used when the need arose.
An example of this is a child, who is born with a complete human nature, but it grows in knowledge, and with time the scope of the intellect and conscience expands. It has properties that the child does not use until he grows older, or until the need for them arises.
The existence of the conscience is one thing, and its use on a wide scale is another.
The more types of sin increase in the world, the more the sphere in which the conscience operates expands accordingly; likewise, the more knowledge increases of new forms of good. The use of the conscience in an adult is broader than its use in a child. But the conscience is the conscience. As for whether it grows stronger or weaker in its work, whether its activity narrows or expands, that is another matter. And no matter how narrow its activity may be, that does not negate its existence. The same applies to many of the capacities of man.
In all of this, we cannot say that man was created without a conscience.
The expression itself is heavy on the ear.
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