Steps to God – The Conscience and the Extent of Its Soundness
Steps to God
You spoke to us about many steps on the road to God. Today I want to speak to you about the conscience, the extent of its soundness, and the impact of that on spiritual life.
The Conscience and the Extent of Its Soundness
The conscience is not the voice of God in a person, because the conscience can err and can deviate, whereas the voice of God cannot err.
The conscience exists within a person like the mind and the spirit. The mind can err, the spirit can err, and likewise the conscience can err.
There are many examples that show the possibility of the conscience making mistakes and deviating.
The Lord Christ said to His disciples: “The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God” (John 16:2). Without doubt, consciences that think killing the apostles is a service to God are deviant consciences.
Likewise were the idol worshipers, who thought that killing Christians was a purification of the land from their unbelief. Their consciences were also astray.
Another example is the people of pre-Islamic ignorance who fell into burying female infants alive. Also people who distribute cigarettes at funerals to their guests, and their conscience troubles them if they do not offer them! Likewise those who use microphones in a way that tires people, harms the sick, distracts students from studying, and disturbs the sleeper who needs rest…
The conscience is a judge that loves good, but it is not infallible from error. Moreover, the concept of good differs among many people. The conscience is also subject to many influences, foremost among them:
Knowledge affects the conscience.
Sound knowledge enlightens the conscience with understanding, for how many people sin out of ignorance, and if they knew, they would refrain from sin.
Saul of Tarsus was one of the devout who erred out of ignorance. Therefore we see him saying: “I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Corinthians 15:9), and “But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13). Yet ignorance does not prevent sin from being sin.
We pray in the Trisagion and ask God to forgive us our sins which we committed knowingly and those which we committed unknowingly. In the Old Testament, the one who committed a sin unintentionally (in ignorance), if he was informed of it, would offer a sacrifice for his guilt so that it might be forgiven (Leviticus 4).
How profound is the saying of the Lord: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).
For this reason the Lord sent prophets, apostles, teachers, priests, and guides, to make people know His way, because their consciences were no longer sufficient to guide them, or because their consciences had led them into wrong paths.
The Holy Bible also is for enlightening the conscience. Therefore David said: “Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction” (Psalm 119:92).
And because a person’s conscience may not be sufficient for his spiritual guidance, God established fathers of confession and spiritual guides, for “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 16:25).
Satan may also try to intervene to guide a person to a deviant path, as he did with our mother Eve in ancient times.
Thus knowledge affects the conscience, whether sound or erroneous.
Erroneous knowledge can also lead the conscience. Was not Epicurean philosophy, based on pleasure, guiding the consciences of its followers? Likewise atheistic philosophies—did they not affect the consciences of those who embraced them, diverting them from the entire path of faith and influencing their behavior?
Those who confess their sins have had their consciences influenced by the sound faith they learned. Those who reject confession among Protestant sects have also been influenced by the knowledge they were taught against confession.
There are teachers who call their disciples to complete seriousness and never laughing, because “By sadness of countenance the heart is made better” (Ecclesiastes 7:3). Other teachers call their disciples to cheerfulness and a life of joy, because “To everything there is a season… a time to weep, and a time to laugh” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). According to the type of knowledge, the conscience is influenced.
There are those who say that birth control is wrong, so the conscience of one who limits his offspring is troubled. Others say it is permissible, so the conscience rests thereby.
For all this, there should be unity of teaching in the Church, so that people’s consciences are not confused by hearing contradictory teachings.
For this reason teaching in the Church was based on tradition, in order to preserve the purity of teaching and its unity. Thus the Apostle Paul said: “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you” (1 Corinthians 11:23). And he said to his disciple Timothy: “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men” (2 Timothy 2:2).
Knowledge leads the conscience; therefore it was required of a bishop to be apt to teach (1 Timothy 3:2). For this reason also the Lord Christ rebuked the scribes and Pharisees because their teaching misled people’s consciences. Likewise Scripture spoke of “false teachers,” and said to Israel: “Those who lead you cause you to err” (Isaiah 3:12).
People’s consciences are influenced by knowledge of what is good and evil, and are also influenced—regarding faith—by doctrinal information.
Knowledge may come from books, pamphlets, or meetings. Therefore it is good for a person to be discerning regarding the books he reads and the type of meetings he attends.
The Influence of the Group on the Conscience
Within a group, a person is influenced by emotion and by the conscience of the group. He may commit something which, if he were alone with himself, his conscience would rebuke him for.
For example, a young man may be swept up in a demonstration, chanting and destroying. If he is arrested and placed in prison, then while alone in the calm of prison, he thinks in a different way from his chanting amid the group. Likewise a young man may fool around and play amid a group of his friends without his conscience awakening or rebuking him. When he is alone, it rebukes him.
Amid the group, the crowds of the Jews cried out: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” (Luke 23:21), contrary to their consciences, or swept along without awareness of the danger of what they were doing.
Therefore the Lord said on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34), because the whirlpool of the group disabled their conscience.
Within a group, rumors and excitements may lead the conscience. A person may believe what is said and act influenced by what he heard.
Mary Magdalene is a clear example of the influence of the group on the conscience.
She saw Christ, held His feet, and worshiped Him (Matthew 28), and heard Him say: “Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me” (Matthew 28:10).
Yet when she merged into the group and heard the rumors spread by the priests about the stealing of the holy body, she went to Peter and John and said to them: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him!” She said the same thing to the angel (John 20).
The conscience may be encouraged if it is influenced by a righteous group and led to good. But it may slacken and fall asleep amid a corrupt group, or its principles may change and it may judge matters differently. This is what we observe in some who leave their countries for a long time.
For this reason we see that the consciences of hermits and anchorites differ greatly from the consciences of laypeople in their sensitivity, judgments, and illumination. They may even differ from the consciences of many monks in monasteries.
However, there are strong consciences over which the current of society does not prevail; rather, they influence it. Examples of this are the prophets and reformers.
They were not influenced by the corruption of their generation, but instead led it and changed it for the better. But not every person is stronger than the group.
These strong ones are characterized by firmness, steadfastness, and nonconformity. They remind me of the six cataracts that obstructed the course of the Nile, which were not affected by all its currents, waters, and waves over thousands of years.
The Conscience Is Influenced by Leaders
The conscience is also influenced by leaders, guides, teachers, famous figures, and fathers.
Often we find a person who is an exact copy of his spiritual or biological father in his style, thoughts, character, and even his movements. He adopts all his principles, and his conscience is influenced by them and they become part of his nature, especially for beginners and those in the period of forming their ideals.
But I know a holy man who stood against this current.
He is the Apostle Paul, who stood against the Apostle Peter, one of the three considered pillars in the Church (Peter, James, and John), and one of those who laid hands on him and sent him for ministry (Acts 13:3). Yet when Saint Peter acted in a blameworthy manner, Saint Paul said: “I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed” (Galatians 2:11). And he said to him: “If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews?” (Galatians 2:14).
This is the behavior of a principled conscience, firmly rooted in its knowledge of truth and good, whose balances are not changed by the actions of great people.
The Conscience Is Influenced by Desires
Desires and emotions, whether love or hatred, influence the conscience in its judgments and behavior. It is rare to find someone who judges a matter completely detached from desires and emotions.
A person falls into a problem and sees that it cannot be solved except by lying. He then calls lying cleverness or shrewdness. If he condemns his behavior, he greatly softens his judgment of it, finding a thousand excuses for himself, and does not judge himself with the same severity with which he judges the behavior of others. Some may call lying “a white lie,” or call it a joke.
A person may love someone and thus defend all his actions, no matter how wrong they are, without his conscience troubling him. Indeed, his conscience may trouble him if he does not defend him. He calls this wrong defense a form of loyalty or duty. He may even call others to act the same way and speak with great enthusiasm and emotion, with which the work of the conscience is disabled. He forgets the saying of Scripture: “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the just—both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 17:15).
He who justifies the wicked is a person against truth and against justice. He cannot excuse this by compassion or mercy, for he can acknowledge that there is guilt and then ask for compassion and mercy for that guilt. But justifying the guilt itself is a distortion of the conscience.
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An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Ninth Year – Issue Thirty-Six – 8–9–1978
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