Rolodex entries - conscience
From Ole Hallesby, Conscience :
“As a matter of fact, it is through conscience that man acquires consciousness of his humanity and is thus distinguished from the brute. It is through conscience that man learns that he is not under necessity, as animals are, to follow the natural law, but is ordained to live according to spiritual law.
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The pleasant and the useful are valuable in themselves and are sought after only because of the satisfaction they afford. Physical values satisfy an immediate need, and because of this they may quickly cease to be a value to us. The cooling breeze is pleasant only as long as we feel warm. Afterwards it quickly becomes unpleasant. Psychological values are by their nature less relative and variable and the satisfaction they afford us is of a more permanent nature. But we seek these values too because of the advantage they afford us and the usefulness to which we can put them. Finally, we have an entirely different plane of values, to which we give the term moral. These too satisfy human needs and must therefore be termed values, but they are fundamentally different from the others we have mentioned. Here it is no longer a question of what is pleasant or useful to me, but of what is right; it is not a question of what I desire or wish, but of what I should or ought to do. In other words, it is a value which is universal in its nature.
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Conscience cannot be deduced from nor explained by other things. It is, in other words, a direct manifestation of that life which makes man a man. … Morality is as much a part of human life as are the logical and aesthetic faculties. Man’s intellect and aesthetic sense cannot be accounted for by other things. They can only be pointed out as psychological facts. So it is also with the moral faculty.
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I feel pleasure when I derive satisfaction, and non-pleasure or pain if I fail to derive it. This is also the case with moral values, and this is precisely what we mean when we speak of a good and a bad conscience. I experience a feeling of pleasure when I obey the voice of conscience and do what is right. And, conversely, I experience a feeling of pain when I fail to obey. However there is a distinct difference between the feelings aroused by conscience and those aroused by other values, a difference which comes to light most strongly and clearly on the negative side, that is, in connection with the feeling of pain. If I burn my hand, I feel intense pain. If anybody slanders me the pain is even more intense. But if I inflect an injury upon my moral being, if I knowingly and willingly do wrong, then I feel a pain of an entirely different nature. It is no doubt impossible to describe exactly the difference between these two kinds of pain, because the feeling of pain connected with morality involves something that is inexpressible. The reason for this is that in our conscience we come face to face with the absolute and this always involves the inexpressible. In general, we may say that we can apprehend with our thinking and put into words only the lower strata of our psychological experiences. The higher regions are of such an exalted nature that we cannot think through them clearly, nor can we give expression to them without involving ourselves in contradictions. However, this does not prevent us from experiencing these inexpressible phases of life. So also it is with conscience. There is something inexpressible about the pain associated with an evil conscience, but it can nevertheless be experienced by everybody, even by the least intelligent. … A good conscience imparts a new worthwhileness to a person’s whole life, gives it a new richness and fulness, and a quiet, peaceful joy which transcends all other joys (p. 20).
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We speak of the judgment of our conscience and the expression is an excellent one, for our conscience can really be compared to a judgment seat. A judgment seat never has legislative authority in any well organized group of human society. It can do no more than state whether the action of the accused is punishable according tot he law of the land or not. This is also what the conscience does. It compares our deeds or our words or our thoughts or our whole being with the moral law, with the will of God. Then it pronounces judgment, that is, decides whether we are in conformity or in conflict with the will of God.
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All that conscience does is to state simply and clearly whether the act is good or bad. It is also absolute. Bargaining or compromise is out of the question. It is also individual. I should not, therefore, seek to compel others to accept the judgments of my conscience.
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This is the great moral morass into which probabilism falls: men no longer ask what is right. They do not even ask which of the moral conceptions with which they are acquainted is right. They merely decide what they in a given case would rather do and then find out if that is probable, that is, whether any teacher of the Church has defended it. On this point, too, Luther rose against the un-Biblical spiritual tyranny of the Roman Church. He pushed aside its suzerainty, not only in the religious but in the moral realm as well. Just as he brought to light again the Biblical truth concerning faith, so he did also concerning conscience. Faith is not, as the Roman Church taught, merely to hold the teachings of the Church to be true; it is the individual soul’s personal trust in God’s revelation in Christ, mediated by the Word of God alone. Through this personal meeting with the living God the individual receives not only personal assurance of salvation, of sonship with God, but his conscience also is created anew, so that by reading the Word of God he can receive personal assurance as to what the will of God is. Luther had to fight this battle out first in his own personal life. He had to free himself from the moral overlordship which the Church exercised over him as well as over the rest of its members. It is very difficult for us who have never experienced such overlordship to understand what violent struggles he had to pass through. Every time that he criticized the doctrines of the Roman Church the Church countered with the one great accusation: ‘Your most serious offence is not that you protest against the teachings of the Church. Many have done that before you. It is rather the conceit which you manifest when you set up your own conscience agains the whole Church. That is your real sin, for the Church is God’s representative on earth. To oppose the Church is to oppose God, and to think oneself above evne God Himself and His representative.’ Luther relates frequently, too, in his open and candid way, how this thought lay upon his heart like a burden that would crush him. He himself often thought that it looked unreasonable that he, an insignificant monk, should be in the right, and the Church with its traditions and all its illustrious names should be in the wrong. He relates also how again and again he was about to agree to a compromise and submit to the authority of the Church over his conscience. But at the same time he says that it was God’s wonderful leading and inner guidance alone which raised him up again and gave him courage and strength to stand with God, relying solely upon the testimony of his own conscience with the whole Church against him. At the Reichstag at Worms, Luther took the final and decisive step in this regard when, speaking before the ecclesiastical and secular authorities assembled there, he said, ‘My conscience is bound in the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is unsafe and dangerous to act against conscience. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me! Amen.’ He restored conscience to its Biblical place. We too must stand or fall by the convictions of our own conscience bound in the Word of God. Luther had also restored the Word of God to its proper place. We must live and teach according to the Word of God as we ourselves have become convinced of its truth through our own conscience, enlightened by that Word, not permitting ourselves to be bound in our conscience by the opinions of others or by their interpretation of it (p. 26 )…
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Let us now try to find out what it is that remains undamaged in the life of conscience and what it is that has been destroyed by the fall. The words of the apostle Paul suggest definitely that it is in relation to the law that conscience has been damaged by the fall. As we have previously said, conscience is a judgment seat, and it pronounces its judgments on the basis of definite legal promises which it has at hand. It is this knowledge of the law which the fall has obscured. The apostle has indicated in Romans i. 18-32 how the heathen lost the true knowledge both of God and of the will of God. It is granted that they have a consciousness of the divine as well as a moral consciousness. But how great a value the apostle places upon these phases of fallen man he expresses clearly and unmistakably when he says that notwithstanding his religion and morality fallen man is ‘without God’ (Ephesians ii. 12), and that ‘the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged.’ (I Corinthians ii. 14). As a consequence of his deficient knowledge of the will of God the conscience of the natural man functions deficiently in various ways. We have abundant opportunity to observe this in the moral and religious life of the heathen, both in the past and in the present. Thus we observe that his conscience leads him in his worship to bow down to man-made things instead of to the Creator and to perform the emptiest and most meaningless kinds of ceremonialism. It also approves of acts in connection with divine worship which are openly immoral, yet it forbids acts which are morally permissible. Generally speaking, it is true to say that the divergent and, in fact, often contradictory decrees expressed by conscience are a consequence of sin, which has weakened and distorted it.
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We notice that the conscience of the heathen impels him to murder his father’s murderer. At first sight this fact has a disturbing effect upon all of us. But the problem is solved as soon as we give full consideration to the fact that conscience is a judgment seat in man. As a judgment seat does not make laws but only passes judgment, so also it is with conscience. It pronounces judgment according to the knowledge of God’s will which a person possesses at that time. And since the heathen, as indicated above, have a very deficient knowledge of the will of God, their conscience will, therefore, pronounce an entirely different judgment from that of the conscience of a Christian, which through supernatural revelation of God has received full knowledge of his will. Now notice the very important fact which we have previously indicated, that conscience according to its form is absolutely the same in all men, in all peoples, in all ages. It is right to say, therefore, that according to its form conscience is infallible. In all men it speaks with unimpeachable authority and says that we ought to submit to the absolute will of God. According to its content, on the other hand, conscience is not infallible. For the content of the judgment which conscience pronounces is dependent upon how far the person concerned knows the will of God. This gives us greater insight into the consequences of the fall as it affects the conscience. We now see that God in His mercy has so ordained it that fallen man, too, there is a voice which speaks to him with absolute authrotiy from the invisible realm of eternity, and which tells him that he ought to do the will of God. This does not mean that the form of conscience has not been damaged at all by the fall. Although it has been damaged less than the content of conscience, nevertheless it has been damaged. Its voice has lost much of its strength as well as its clarity. … Conscience has been called the voice of God. From what we have now observed it is clear that this is an unfortunate expression if we think of conscience as a whole, of both its form and content. For, as we have seen, its judgments are both divergent and contradictory. If it were the voice of God it could not, of course, contradict itself. But if we think of the form of conscience, that function of soul which unmistakeably tells us all that we ought to do the will of God, then we can well call it the voice of God. God Himself has ordained that these regular admonitions should come to us from the realm of the absolute and the eternal, admonitions which we experience without ourselves doing anything to bring them about. In fact, most people do a great deal to rid themselves of this voice of God within.
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The primary and vital deficiency in the conscience of the heathen is that it cannot distinguish the will of God clearly enough to see that man should be judged according to the moral foundation of his whole being, according to the sinful state of soul from which all his particular sins proceed. … (p.32)
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First we must remember that ‘all these things are of God’. He has planned it all. He it is, too, who has been fulfilling it all the way. A clear and profound statement of this plan occurs early in Old Testament times in Hannah’s simple words, ‘Jehovah killeth and maketh alive’ (1 Samuel ii. 6). A killing process is here taking place, one which is being carried out under God’s direction. Jesus, too, has made mention of this putting to death: ‘Whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it’ (Luke xvii. 33). The Apostle Paul also speaks of this death and this killing process: ‘I was alive apart from the law once but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; and the commandment, which was unto life, this I found to be unto death’ (Romans vii. 9, 10). ‘For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God’ (Galatians ii. 19). These Biblical truths have now for some time all but disappeared from our preaching. We have limited ourselves to one or two passages dealing with the law, such as these: ‘Through the law cometh knowledge of sin’ (Romans iii. 20) and ‘The law hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith’ (Galatians iii. 24). We have confined ourselves largely to these two passages, and thought that the function of the law was only to produce the knowledge of sin and thus drive the sinner to Christ. And we have passed by in silence Paul’s words about the killing work of the law. While we have not said anything against it, neither have we said anything for it. But our preaching has suffered as a result. … There is in our day an exceptionally large number of people who have been awakened and who are repentant but who do not have peace and assurance. Many of them continue in this state for a long time, frequently to the accompaniment of much spiritual distress. I believe that it is more difficult to help these people than anybody else. These folk would undoubtedly receive more help from us than they do if we were better qualified to preach and if we spoke more about what the Scriptures call the killing work of the law. They would then receive an answer to the question that is constantly annoying them: Why does God deal with me as He does? Why does He not give me peace and assurance? Why is He so harsh in His dealings with me? There is nothing that I would rather do than believe in His grace alone. This problem becomes particularly acute and, in fact, almost unendurable, when this inner distress increases and turns into anxiety and despair. Why is God so severe? Why does He strike so violently? This question the Bible answers very simply by saying: He killeth. There is something within us that must be put to death. And that something God deliberately kills, whether we understand what He is doing or not. Nor does He ask those who are preaching the word for permission thus to kill. What is it then that must be put to death? ‘I died,’ says the Apostle. It is the old I which must be put to death. Our self-life must be bruised and broken, and not our self-life in the form of egoism and self-wilfulness only, although that too is involved. What we wish to emphasize here first and foremost is that our whole attitude to God must be changed. What must be broken is that confidence which I have in myself, in my own understanding of spiritual things, in my own will, in my own religion and morality, that confidence in mysefl with which I always oppose God and which is the real hindrance to my being saved. To break our own inherent and deeply rooted self-confidence, which is fallen man’s deepest hurt, is undoubtedly the most difficult work that God has to accomplish within us. And when we see how He does it, we must stand before Him in awe, adoration, and thanksgiving. He breaks our old self-life by driving it to exhaustion, to a point where it has spent all its energies and lies at His feet, surrendered and crushed. He does this by the help of conscience after it has been enlightened by the Word of God and born anew by a spiritual awakening. This driving to death takes place by various stages, so to speak, in which God by the help of conscience steadily makes life more difficult for our old nature. (p56)”