WITH all this controversy surrounding the “dubia” raised by
4
Cardinals before Pope Francis, the issue of conscience once again
comes to the open. It’s about how to understand the so-called primacy
of conscience which so many people, especially some theologians, like
to invoke.
It’s true that our conscience enjoys some kind of primacy in our
spiritual and moral life. But we have to understand that primacy as
our conscience being an immediate guide in our spiritual and moral
life but never as our ultimate, absolute guide.
Our conscience needs to follow an objective moral law which is not
ours to make or invent, but that of God who is our Creator and Father.
It’s God who sort of sets the rules of the game for us insofar as our
spiritual and moral life is concerned.
After all, being the Creator, he designs the nature of our humanity
and points out what is good and bad for it. Our conscience, in short,
cannot and should not be self-guided. It needs to be educated, formed,
disciplined and purified, given the wounded condition we all are in
because of sin.
That is why it is wrong to say that since our conscience, as our
Catechism teaches, is “man’s most secret core and his sanctuary
(where) he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths (1776),
no one can tell anything to anyone about what his conscience tells
him, because it is supposedly an affair strictly between God and man.
That is quite a stretch to make, since God also makes use of human
and natural instruments and devices to make his voice heard by us. No
one can just say that he alone can authoritatively hear and interpret
the voice of God to him. He also has to listen to some instruments who
are precisely endowed with authority to guide all and each one of us.
The usual problem here is that even if in principle and in theory we
know this truth about our conscience, we can find it hard to follow
and live that principle for a number a reasons, prominent among which
is that we always have to contend with our weaknesses, temptations and
sin itself.
In my chats with people, and somehow verified in many readings of
current developments, I get the impression that conscience is
increasingly considered the ultimate bastion of personal freedom, the
seat of one’s real and barest self, where nothing extraneous like law
should be let in.
I am afraid this is a dangerous drift in people’s understanding of
things. It betrays a treacherous and even alarming idea of freedom.
Freedom now becomes detached from any clear, fixed reference point,
and is now allowed to spin and fly in any direction
Freedom, in this view, is prone to become nothing other than a whim
or caprice, a purely subjective affair. It considers itself
self-created and self-defining, its own law, completely at the mercy
of arbitrary impulses, like one’s moods, passing fancies, current
crazes and fads.
Freedom without a fixed reference point can go everywhere but can end
nowhere. It becomes a wild and destructive force that frustrates our
desire for peace and joy. It’s highly deceptive, strongly seductive
but completely dangerous.
And yet no matter how distorted and even denied, the objective truth
about freedom, especially as it relates to the link between law and
conscience, cannot be contradicted. The truth about it, sooner or
later, will prevail. It cannot be hidden and frustrated for long.
A wayward freedom, if it does not crash, will be forced to correct
itself. It cannot escape the working of its own nature, and its own
origin and purpose. It might take centuries, wars, pain, blood, but it
cannot go against itself indefinitely.
If freedom has to be grounded on truth and ultimately on God, then
conscience too should be so grounded. We need to realize more deeply
that our conscience needs to be vitally united with God not only in
terms of knowing the moral laws and principles but also and most
especially of developing a living piety and spirituality. Otherwise,
our conscience will most likely miss, or at least, misunderstand the
voice of God.
It’s in this ideal condition of our conscience that we can more
sharply and promptly discern what God is telling us in any given
situation. We will have the true wisdom of God as well as have the
proper counsel we can give on ourselves and on others.
The condition of our conscience depends on the condition of our
spiritual and moral life itself.
Cardinals before Pope Francis, the issue of conscience once again
comes to the open. It’s about how to understand the so-called primacy
of conscience which so many people, especially some theologians, like
to invoke.
It’s true that our conscience enjoys some kind of primacy in our
spiritual and moral life. But we have to understand that primacy as
our conscience being an immediate guide in our spiritual and moral
life but never as our ultimate, absolute guide.
Our conscience needs to follow an objective moral law which is not
ours to make or invent, but that of God who is our Creator and Father.
It’s God who sort of sets the rules of the game for us insofar as our
spiritual and moral life is concerned.
After all, being the Creator, he designs the nature of our humanity
and points out what is good and bad for it. Our conscience, in short,
cannot and should not be self-guided. It needs to be educated, formed,
disciplined and purified, given the wounded condition we all are in
because of sin.
That is why it is wrong to say that since our conscience, as our
Catechism teaches, is “man’s most secret core and his sanctuary
(where) he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths (1776),
no one can tell anything to anyone about what his conscience tells
him, because it is supposedly an affair strictly between God and man.
That is quite a stretch to make, since God also makes use of human
and natural instruments and devices to make his voice heard by us. No
one can just say that he alone can authoritatively hear and interpret
the voice of God to him. He also has to listen to some instruments who
are precisely endowed with authority to guide all and each one of us.
The usual problem here is that even if in principle and in theory we
know this truth about our conscience, we can find it hard to follow
and live that principle for a number a reasons, prominent among which
is that we always have to contend with our weaknesses, temptations and
sin itself.
In my chats with people, and somehow verified in many readings of
current developments, I get the impression that conscience is
increasingly considered the ultimate bastion of personal freedom, the
seat of one’s real and barest self, where nothing extraneous like law
should be let in.
I am afraid this is a dangerous drift in people’s understanding of
things. It betrays a treacherous and even alarming idea of freedom.
Freedom now becomes detached from any clear, fixed reference point,
and is now allowed to spin and fly in any direction
Freedom, in this view, is prone to become nothing other than a whim
or caprice, a purely subjective affair. It considers itself
self-created and self-defining, its own law, completely at the mercy
of arbitrary impulses, like one’s moods, passing fancies, current
crazes and fads.
Freedom without a fixed reference point can go everywhere but can end
nowhere. It becomes a wild and destructive force that frustrates our
desire for peace and joy. It’s highly deceptive, strongly seductive
but completely dangerous.
And yet no matter how distorted and even denied, the objective truth
about freedom, especially as it relates to the link between law and
conscience, cannot be contradicted. The truth about it, sooner or
later, will prevail. It cannot be hidden and frustrated for long.
A wayward freedom, if it does not crash, will be forced to correct
itself. It cannot escape the working of its own nature, and its own
origin and purpose. It might take centuries, wars, pain, blood, but it
cannot go against itself indefinitely.
If freedom has to be grounded on truth and ultimately on God, then
conscience too should be so grounded. We need to realize more deeply
that our conscience needs to be vitally united with God not only in
terms of knowing the moral laws and principles but also and most
especially of developing a living piety and spirituality. Otherwise,
our conscience will most likely miss, or at least, misunderstand the
voice of God.
It’s in this ideal condition of our conscience that we can more
sharply and promptly discern what God is telling us in any given
situation. We will have the true wisdom of God as well as have the
proper counsel we can give on ourselves and on others.
The condition of our conscience depends on the condition of our
spiritual and moral life itself.
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