Christianity and Ethics: A Handbook of Christian Ethics

by Archibald B. D. Alexander

Socrates was among the first teachers of antiquity who led the way to that self-knowledge which is of the essence of conscience, and in the 'Daemon,' or inner voice, which he claimed to possess, some writers have detected the trace {70} of the intuitive monitor of man. Plato's discussion of the question, 'What is the highest good?' involves the capacity of moral judgment, and his conception of reason regulating desire suggests a power in the mind whose function it is to point to the highest good and to subordinate to it all the other impulses of man. In the ethics of Aristotle there is a reference to a faculty in man or 'rule within,' which, he says, the beasts lack.

But it is among the Stoics that the word first appears; and it is to the Roman moralist, Seneca, that we are indebted for the earlier definite perception of an abiding consciousness bearing witness concerning a man's own conduct. The writings of Epictetus, Aurelius, and Seneca approach in moral sublimity and searching self-analysis the New Testament Scriptures. It was probably to the Stoics that St. Paul was indebted for the word syneidêsis to which he has given so distinctive a meaning that it has coloured and determined the whole later history of the moral consciousness.

2. But if the word as used in the New Testament comes from Greek sources the idea itself was long prevalent in the Jewish conception of life, which, even more than the Greek, was constitutive of, and preparatory to, the Christian view. The word does not, indeed, occur in the Old Testament, but the question of God to Adam, 'Where art thou?' the story of Cain and the curse he was to suffer for the murder of his brother; the history of Joseph's dealing with his brethren; the account of David's sin and conviction, are by implication appeals to conscience. Indeed, the whole history of Israel, from the time when the promise was given to Abraham and the law through Moses until the denunciations of wrong-doing and the predictions of doom of the later prophets, is one long education of the moral sense. It is the problem of conscience that imparts its chief interest to the book of Job; and one reason why the Psalms in all ages have been so highly prized is because they are the cries of a wounded conscience, and the confessions of a convicted and contrite heart.

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3. If we turn to the New Testament we find, as we might expect, a much clearer testimony to the reality of the conscience. The word came into the hands of the New Testament writers ready-made, but they gave to it a richer meaning, so that it is to them we must go if we would understand the nature and the supremacy of the conscience. The term occurs thirty-one times in the New Testament, but it does not appear once in the Gospels. It is, indeed, principally a Pauline expression, and to the apostle of the Gentiles more than to any other writer is due the clear conception and elucidation of the term. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the doctrine itself depends entirely upon the use of the word. Our Lord never, indeed, employs the term, but surely no teacher ever sounded the depths of the human heart as He did. It was His mission to reveal men to themselves, to convict them of sin, and show the need of that life of righteousness and purity which He came to give. 'Why even of yourselves,' He said, 'judge ye not what is right?' Christ, indeed, might be called the conscience of man. To awaken, renew and enlighten the moral sense of individuals, to make them know what they were and what they were capable of becoming was the work of the Son of Man, and in contact with Him every one was morally unveiled.

The word occurs twice in Acts, five times in Hebrews, three times in the Epistles of Peter, and more than twenty times in the Pauline Epistles. St. Paul's doctrine of the conscience is contained in Romans ii. 14, 15, where he speaks of the Gentiles being 'a law unto themselves,' inasmuch as they possess a 'law written in their hearts,' 'their conscience bearing witness, therewith accusing or excusing them.' The idea underlying the passage is the responsibility of all men for their actions, their condemnation in sin, and their acceptance in righteousness. This applies to Gentiles as well as Jews, and it applies to them because, though they have not the explicit revelation of the law, they have a revelation of the good in their hearts. The passage therefore teaches two things: (1) That man has received a {72} revelation of good sufficient at all stages of his history to make him morally responsible; and (2) That man possesses a moral faculty which indeed is not a separate power, but the whole moral consciousness or personality in virtue of which he recognises and approves of the good which, either as the law written in his heart or as the law communicated in the Decalogue, has been revealed to him, and by whose authority he judges himself.

II. Nature, and Origin of Conscience.—While experience seems to point to the existence of something in man witnessing to the right, there is great diversity of view as to the nature of this moral element. The word 'Conscience' stands for a concept whose meaning is far from well defined, and the lack of definiteness has left its trace upon ethical theories. While some moralists assign conscience to the rational or intellectual side of man, and make it wholly a faculty of judgment; others attribute it to feeling or impulse, and make it a sense of pleasure or pain; others again associate it more closely with the will, and regard its function to be legislative or imperative. These differences of opinion reveal the complexity of the nature of conscience. The fact is, that it belongs to all these departments—the intellectual, emotional, and volitional—and ought to be regarded not as a single faculty distinct from the particular decisions, motives, and acts of man, not as an activity foreign to the ego, but as the expression of the whole personality. The question of the origin of conscience, though closely connected with its nature, is for ethics only of secondary importance. It is desirable, however, to indicate the two main theories which have been held regarding its genesis. While there are several varieties, they may be divided broadly into two—Intuitionalism and Evolutionalism.

1. Nativism, of which Intuitionalism is the most common form, regards the conscience as a separate natural endowment, coeval with the creation of man. Every individual, it is maintained, has been endowed by nature with a distinct faculty or organ by which he can immediately and clearly {73} pronounce upon the rightness or wrongness of his own actions. In its most pronounced form this theory maintains that man has not merely a general consciousness of moral distinctions, but possesses from the very first, apart from all experience and education, a definite and clear knowledge of the particular vices which ought to be avoided and the particular virtues which ought to be practised. This theory is usually connected with a form of theism which maintains that the conscience is particularly a divine gift, and is, indeed, God's special witness or oracle in the heart of man.

Though there would seem to be an element of truth in intuitionalism, since man, to be man at all, must be conceived as made for God and having that in him which points to the end or ideal of his being, still in its most extreme form it would not be difficult to show that this theory is untenable. It is objectionable, because it involves two assumptions, of which the one conflicts with experience, and the other with the psychological nature of man.

(1) Experience gives us no warrant for supposing that duty is always the same, and that conscience is therefore exempt from change. History shows rather that moral convictions only gradually emerge, and that the laws and customs of one age are often repudiated by the next. What may seem right to one man is no longer so to his descendant. History records deeds committed in one generation in the name of conscience which in the same name a later generation has condemned with horror. Moreover, the possibility of a conflict between duties proves that unconditional truth exists at no stage of moral development. There is no law so sacred that it may not in special cases have to yield to the sacredness of a higher law. When duties conflict, our choice cannot be determined by any a priori principle residing in ourselves. It must be governed by that wider conception of the moral life which is to be gained through one's previous development, and on the basis of a ripe moral experience.[5] (2) Nor is this theory consistent with {74} the known nature of man. We know of no separate and independent organ called conscience. Man must not be divided against himself. Reason and feeling enter into all acts of will, since these are not processes different in kind, but elements of voluntary activity itself and inseparable from it. It is impossible for a man to be determined in his actions or judgments by a mere external formula of duty, a 'categorical imperative,' as Kant calls it, apart from motives. Moreover, all endowments may be regarded as divine gifts, and it is a precarious position to claim for one faculty a spiritually divine or supernatural origin which is denied to others. Man is related to God in his whole nature. The view which regards the law of duty as something foreign to man, stern and unchangeable in its decrees, and in nowise dependent upon the gradual development and growing content of the moral life is not consistent either with history or psychology.