SDG here with some follow-up thoughts on conscience, sparked by comments in the last combox. A reader writes:
The proper formation of one’s conscience is at the heart of all the hypotheticals. Personally, I don’t know if I could count on my own conscience without lining it up with the Church’s teachings.
Yes indeed, proper formation of conscience is crucially important. However, the authority of a poorly formed conscience is just as absolute as that of a well-formed conscience. However well or poorly one’s conscience may be formed, one is always absolutely bound to follow one’s conscience, that is, one’s last best judgment of what one ought to do. If a man has a dreadfully formed conscience, he may be led to do dreadful things. But to go against one’s one’s last best judgment of what one ought to do, to do what one believes is wrong, is the essence, the very form, of sin.
Note what this doesn’t mean: It doesn’t mean privileging your own sense of a particular issue over the voice of authority, whether the word of God, the Magisterium, or lesser authorities like parents, government leaders or social consensus. It does mean that when you have listened to all relevant authorities and arguments, taking everything into account, whatever you believe in the end you ought to do is what you must do.
If a person holds a moral opinion contrary to Magisterial teaching, it would certainly be well for him if his conscience, however flawed, were at least well-formed enough for him to conclude, “Even though my own sense of the issue is very far from what the Church says, and I really can’t see the reasoning behind it, at the same time I do believe that the Holy Spirit guides the Church, and that tells me that I ought to listen to the Church even though I don’t understand.” In that case, his conscience — his last best judgment of what he ought to do — tells him to listen to the Church, and that is what he ought to do.
However, suppose his conscience is so poorly formed that he thinks, “I’d really like to be able to trust the Church here, but I just can’t. I think the Church is wrong, and I can’t do what the Church wants me to without violating my conscience.” That is certainly a disastrous conclusion — but, having reached that conclusion, as long as he remains in that faulty opinion, for him to follow the Church anyway (say, out of timidity, social pressure or for some other reason) would be to go against his conscience, and thus to formal sin. Given his faulty reasoning, he must obey the voice of his conscience, even though this means disobeying the Church and committing material sin.
Of course it would be better for him to correct his faulty reasoning at least enough to conclude that it probably makes more sense to trust the Church than his own sense of the issue. Better still, he should correct his conscience enough to understand and assent to the Church’s teaching on the basis of its own intelligibility. Obviously, a better informed conscience will lead you more reliably and safely than a poorly formed one. Doing what you believe is right is no shield against the bad consequences of sinful and destructive actions. But doing what you believe is wrong, pitting the will itself against the good, puts one as far from beatitude as it is possible to be.
Thus, when the reader writes, “I don’t know if I could count on my own conscience without lining it up with the Church’s teachings,” it sounds as if the reader’s conscience tells her that the Church’s teachings must inform her last best judgment of what she ought to do — and if she were to find herself at odds with the Church, she would conclude that she hadn’t yet reached a last best judgment. That’s as it should be.
In other words, if one’s thinking is, “My own sense of the issue is to do X, but the Church tells me to do Y, and in the end I trust the Church more than my own sense of the issue, so I think I should do Y,” then one is not trusting the Church instead of one’s conscience. Rather, one’s conscience tells one to do Y, not X, in keeping with the Church’s teaching.
Lots of people don’t understand this point.
I find this Part 2 harder to agree with than Part 1, though I’m not necessarily saying that I disagree with it.
But where might the concept of natural law come in — that is, the idea that certain moral laws are written on all people’s hearts, such that they cannot authentically claim that they didn’t recognize the wrongness of a certain action?
It would seem to me that such persons would have to actively “bury” the natural law in order to not recognize the wrongness of such actions — and it is that choice to “bury” the law that is sinful and extends sin to the actions that follow.
FWIW, this is pure Cardinal Newman, and pretty mainstream Catholic moral theology. I am aware of no viable tradition in Catholic moral theology that allows one to say that there are times when one ought to go against one’s last best judgment of what one ought to do.
Good question. Time for part 3!
Good stuff, SDG. For what it’s worth, here are some interesting quotes to the same effect from then-Cardinal Ratzinger in the first of two essays in his book, On Conscience:
“[T]he toast to conscience indeed must precede the toast to the pope, because without the conscience there would be no papacy.” (p. 36, agreeing with Newman)
“On … the level of judgment (conscientia in the narrower sense), it can be said that even the erroneous conscience binds.” (p. 37)
“The guilt then lies in a different place, much deeper–not in the present act, not in the present judgment of conscience, but in the neglect of my being that made me deaf to the internal promptings of truth.” (p. 38)
if one’s thinking is, “My own sense of the issue is to do X, but the Church tells me to do Y, and in the end I trust the Church more than my own sense of the issue, so I think I should do Y,” then one is not trusting the Church instead of one’s conscience. Rather, one’s conscience tells one to do Y, not X, in keeping with the Church’s teaching.
Or, rather, “in keeping with one’s own understanding of the Church’s teachings.” As such, the saga might be better be told as, “My own sense of the issue is to do X, but also my own sense of the Church’s teachings is to do Y. As these are both my own sense, and yet they disagree, I sense that my sense is in conflict, and thus my sense is nonsense.” To continue this nonsense with “and I sense in the end I should trust the Church more than my own sense, so I think I should do Y” is just more nonsense, the ramblings of lunacy.
So let’s get back to the subject: conscience. If the certain judgment of my conscience is to do X, and not simply some wishywashy “sense”, then that’s it — judgment rendered to do X. But such a certain judgment would not be rendered if doubts about “I think the Church tells me to do Y and I should trust the Church” were nagging at me. If such thoughts were nagging at me, and “so I think I should do Y,” that is not in itself a certain judgment of conscience, nor can it be said to be a reasonable conclusion if truly “my own sense of the issue is to do X.”
A reasonable conclusion can only be made when the conflicts in thinking have been resolved. Until then, the ramblings are lunacy, and an insanity plea might well be in order — if one could escape the charge of “neglect of my being that made me deaf to the internal promptings of truth.” And indeed, the Church does teach (CCC#1735) that “Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.”
You start so well, and then peter out into inanity.
Hardly. Similar principles apply to non-moral things: You are driving in an unfamiliar neighborhood of a city you otherwise know well, toward a destination whose location you know and the direction of which you have some sense of. At a crucial intersection your best judgment is to turn left. But then your friend, whom you know knows this neighborhood better than you, says, “No, turn right.”
“Right?” you say. That makes no sense to you. If he’d even said “Go straight,” you might possibly have understood, but a right turn seems to you to be certainly going in the opposite direction from where you need to be.
Your own sense of the issue, independent of your friend’s advice, tells you that the way to get where you need to be is to turn left. But that is not your last best judgment. Your trust in your friend leads you to conclude that he is probably right and you are probably wrong, and that, despite your independent sense of the issue, the way to get where you need to be is to turn right.
(Excursus: To say that you conclude that he is “probably right” and you are “probably wrong” obviously means that your independent sense of direction, your provisional judgment of which way to go and not go, is probably wrong. Obviously you don’t think that your final conclusion (to trust your friend’s sense of direction) is probably wrong. If you thought that, it wouldn’t be your final conclusion.)
In doing turning right, you are in fact making the best judgment you can for getting to your destination. It would be another story if you really believed that on this occasion your friend was wrong, but you decided to turn right anyway for some reason (say, to avoid hurting his feelings). You might actually wind up at your destination that way, but your choice would not be a choice to take the best available route to your destination. You would be deciding that the destination was less important than some other thing.
Similar principles apply to moral reasoning, even without bringing the authority of the Magisterium to bear. The moral authority of a child’s parents, or an adult’s trusted friends, could sway the child or the adult from the course of action that, relying on his own sense of the issue independently of the weight of authority, he would have chosen. And that can often be a wise choice, not “lunacy” at all.
Yes, but it’s only the certain judgment of your conscience when you have factored everything in and arrived at your last best judgment. Until that point, you have provisional judgments that are less than the absolutely binding voice of conscience.
Why not? Would you say it is always unreasonable to allow trust in someone or something else to dissuade you from what you would otherwise believe was the correct course?
You start so well, and then peter out into inanity.
It’s just reflections on what you wrote.
You are driving… your best judgment is to turn left. But then your friend, whom you know knows this neighborhood better than you, says, “No, turn right.”
What you’ve subsequently presented is an eventful story of a blind person who “knows” he’s blind being directly corrected through intervention from someone whom “you know knows better” and then making a rational (implied by the notion of “knowing better”) decision. How about making it like the previous case: (1) He sensed that he should turn left, and (2) he sensed he should turn right, and (3) he sensed that he should turn right more than to obey his senses, and (4) he sensed that his senses were faulty. He doesn’t “know” that any sense is “better” than another; he just senses that his (faulty) senses are suggesting that. Likewise, in the previous case, there were multiple clouds all from the same cloud maker: (1) “my own sense of the issue is to do X”; (2) “my own sense of the Church’s teachings is to do Y”; (3) “my own sense is I should trust the Church more than my own sense”; and (4) “my own sense is discredited, which discredits #3, and #1, #2 and #4.” As they are all “my own sense,” they are all “my own” clouds. Why should the cloud maker listen to cloud #2? Because cloud #3 says so?
“Right?” you say. That makes no sense to you… Your trust in your friend leads you to conclude that he is probably right and you are probably wrong
According to your story, it was because you “knew” your friend “knew better” (“whom you know knows this neighborhood better”) which led to your trusting him. Rather than it making “no sense to you,” his instruction to turn right made sense to you as being a more knowledgeable decision. It may have flown in the face of some of your other beliefs, but you discredited those other beliefs in your concession that your friend knew better.
In the previous case, one did not “know” that the Church knew better and thus why trust the Church? Instead, what we had was a cloud, “my own sense is I should trust the Church more than my own sense,” which is a circular cloud that discredits itself.
Yes, but it’s only the certain judgment of your conscience when you have factored everything in and arrived at your last best judgment. Until that point, you have provisional judgments that are less than the absolutely binding voice of conscience.
To factor “everything” in would require omniscience. And as long as one can change one’s mind, nothing is “absolutely binding”.
Would you say it is always unreasonable to allow trust in someone or something else to dissuade you from what you would otherwise believe was the correct course?
What I was saying is that if I have nagging doubts, I do not have certain judgment. As to the question on trust and dissuasion, do you imagine a difference between them? To me, they are two words for the same thing. Or, if X and Y were opposed to one another, and I trusted in X, there would be no need to dissuade me from Y. As such, the question you asked is malformed.
Sheer, willful poppycock. Too many mischaracterizations and falsehoods to be worth enumerating.
It would be funny to see you actually try to enact your ridiculous pettifoggery while trying to drive somewhere you sort of know how to get to with someone else who probably knows better. “Left or right? It’s all my own clouds!”
Sorry, no more time to waste playing. Like the new handle, tho.
someone else who probably knows better
That’s a “my sense is someone else has better sense” cloud, a puffed up “my sense is my sense is faulty” cloud of the circular, self-discrediting type. An “I don’t know that I don’t know” cloud may be approaching.
It would be funny to see you actually try to enact … “Left or right? It’s all my own clouds!”
A woman came with kids in tow to stay with me, from far away. It was a cloudless day, and she arrived not late, not early, with a most joyful look on her face. She said, “I didn’t need a map to find you, and I didn’t have to ask for directions! I was never lost!” We had a good laugh.
Pop. Py. Cock. There are self-discrediting clouds, all right, but you’re looking for them in the wrong places. Try a mirror.
“Like the new handle, tho. ”
Yes… very appropriate. In fact, it constitutes the most substantive statement I’ve yet seen from this poster.
Try a mirror.
I am, as you are, WE, contemplating as in a mirror, beholding and reflecting the glory of God.
In fact, it constitutes the most substantive statement I’ve yet seen from this poster.
Continue contemplating as in a mirror.
Nuisance, I ask you, please, in your smoke-blowing and pettifogging, not to invoke God.
I agree with this post and the reader’s post. For example, I don’t really understand the law requiring Catholics to abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent. For me, eating seafood over a hamburger is by no means a penance for me. However, I follow the law in deference to my Bishop. I think this shows an act of humility and an act of faith.
I dunno. I think (though there could be possible exceptions) that if I disagreed with the Church or my bishop, I would tend to conclude that it’s quite likely that my judgment is being clouded by my own desires.
Even in the example of marriage you gave in the other post, I’m not sure I could go against the Church, because I am deciding that the truth is the way I want it to be. Is that conscience, or is it rationalization masquerading as conscience? It’s pretty uncertain. I would be too afraid to increase my culpability in the case where I’m wrong. I’m very glad I’m not in that position.