3. Finally, in this connection the question of the permanence of conscience may be referred to. Is the ultimate of life a state in which conscience will pervade every department of a man's being, dominating all his thoughts and activities? or is the ideal condition one in which conscience shall be outgrown and its operation rendered superfluous? A recent writer on Christian ethics[13] makes the remarkable statement that where there is no sense of sin conscience has no function, and he draws the inference that where there is complete normality and perfect moral health conscience will be in abeyance. Satan, inasmuch as he lacks all moral instinct, can know nothing of conscience; and, because of His sinlessness, Jesus must also be pronounced conscienceless. Hence the paradox attributed to Machiavelli: 'He who is without conscience is either a Christ or a devil.' But though it is true that the Son of Man had no actual experience of sin, and could not, indeed, feel remorse or contrition, yet in so far as He was man there was in Him {80} the possibility of sin, and in the intimate relation which He bore to the human race He had a most accurate and clear knowledge both of the meaning and consequences of evil. So far from saying that Christ had no conscience, it would be nearer the truth to say that He had a perfect conscience, a personality and fullness of consciousness which was a complete reflection of, and harmony with, the highest conceivable good. The confusion of thought into which Professor Lemme seems to fall is due, we cannot help thinking, to the too restricted and negative signification he gives to conscience. Conscience is not merely the faculty of reproving and approving one's own conduct when brought into relation with actual sin. It is involved in every moral judgment. A good conscience is not only the absence of an evil one. It has also a positive sanctioning value. The 'ought' of life is constantly present. It is the whole man ever conscious of, and confronted by, his ideal self. The conscience participates in man's gradual progress and enlightenment; so far from the individual growing towards a condition in which self-judgment ceases, he is progressing rather in moral discernment, and becoming more and more responsive to the will of Him whose impress and image he bears upon his soul.
The tendency of modern physiological accounts of conscience has been to undermine its authority and empty life of its responsibility, but no theory of the origin of conscience must be permitted to invalidate its judgments. If conscience has any moral worth it is that it contains the promise and witness of God. The prime question is, What is the nature of its testimony? According to the teaching of Scripture it bears witness to the existence of a higher than man—to a divine Person with whom he is spiritually akin and to whom he is accountable.
'God's most intimate presence in the soul.' As the revelation of God's will grows clearer man's ideal becomes loftier. Hence a man's conscience is the measure of his moral life. It reveals God, and in the light of God reveals man to himself. We carry a 'forever' within our bosom, {81} 'ein Gott in unserer Brust,'[14] as Goethe says, which reminds us that even while denizens of this earth we are citizens of heaven and the sharers of an eternal life. Like another John the Baptist, conscience points to one greater than itself. It emphasises the discord that exists between the various parts of man's nature, a discord which it condemns but cannot remove. It can judge, but it cannot compel. Hence it places man before Christ, and bids him yield to the sway of a new transforming power. As one has finely said, 'He who has implanted in every breast such irrefragible testimony to the right, and such unappeasable yearnings for its complete triumph, now comes in His own perfect way to reveal Himself as the Lord of conscience, the Guide of its perplexities, the Strength of its weakness and the Perfecter of its highest hopes.'[15]
[1] Davidson, The Christian Conscience.
[2] Cf. Symonds, Studies of Greek Poets, first series, p. 191.
[3] Antigone, Plumptre's Trans., 455-9.
[4] Cf. Bunsen, God in History, vol. ii. p. 224; also Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature.
[5] Cf. Wundt, Ethik, vol. ii. p. 66.
[6] Data of Ethics, p. 18.
[7] Proleg., section 83.