Rev José Mario O Mandía
jmom.honlam.org
What do we understand by “conscience”?
The CCCC (No. 372) defines conscience as follows: “Moral conscience, present in the heart of the person, is a judgment of reason which at the appropriate moment enjoins him to do good and to avoid evil. Thanks to moral conscience, the human person perceives the moral quality of an act to be done or which has already been done, permitting him to assume responsibility for the act. When attentive to moral conscience, the prudent person can hear the voice of God who speaks to him or her.”
Let us examine the various elements in this definition.
(1) It is a judgment of reason. The intellect has three acts: simple apprehension; judgment, when we affirm or deny; and reasoning (cf. Bite-Size Philosophy 7). Conscience is a judgment of reason; it is an act of the intellect and, therefore, not a feeling. It is a judgment made by reason when it examines whether an action is good or bad.
Let us recall that freedom requires the intellect and the will. When the intellect evaluates the morality of the action, when it weighs whether an action is good or bad, the act of judging the action is called “conscience.”
(2) Judges goodness or evil. The intellect makes many kinds of judgment and conscience is just one of those kinds. The Catechism calls the goodness or evil of an act its “moral quality.”
(3) The act being judged can be a past, present or future action.
WHAT ARE THE KINDS OF CONSCIENCE?
(1) The conscience may either judge correctly or wrongly (cf. CCC 1799).
(1.1) When it judges correctly, it is called a true, right, or correct, conscience. A correct conscience judges bad as bad and good as good, based on what the moral law teaches. Our Lord told His Apostles (Matthew 5:37; cf. James 5:12): “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”
(1.2) When it judges wrongly, it is called a false, or erroneous, conscience. Where do these errors come from? The CCC (No. 1792) explains that errors can result from a variety of reasons: “Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.”
(2) A person may be (2.1) firmly convinced about his judgment, or he may be (2.2) open to changing his mind, or he may also (2.3) hesitate. Here we find three states of assent to, or acceptance, of the verdict of the conscience. These can be described as:
(2.1) Certainty. This is the case where one is firmly convinced that some action is good or bad; or not so good or not so bad.
(2.2) Opinion. This is a tentative attitude. One is inclined to think that something is good or bad, but he is open to the possibility that he may be wrong.
(2.3) Doubt. A person in doubt has not yet made a judgment on whether something is good or bad. It is never licit to act with a doubtful conscience. One has to resolve the doubt before acting.
(3) Moreover, the conscience may oblige in different degrees.
(3.1) It may simply allow or advise against an action to be done.
(3.2) It may suggest that it be carried out.
(3.3) It may command or prohibit an action.
An important rule to keep in mind is that a person is obliged to obey his conscience when its judgment is certain (not merely holding an opinion or is doubtful) and when it commands or prohibits (not merely allows or suggests). Thus, CCC (No. 1790) teaches: “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were to deliberately act against it, he would condemn himself.”
Follow
