Being Conscientious About Conscience
By DONALD DeMARCO
My earliest recollection of an explanation of conscience was when I was a young lad sitting in a movie theater and being enthralled by Walt Disney’s 1940 classic, Pinocchio. The newly carved puppet had been brought to life by the Blue Fairy. But he was still a puppet and had not been endowed with a conscience. It fell to Jiminy Cricket to instruct Pinocchio on the meaning of conscience.
“If you want to be a real boy,” Jiminy explained, “you have to know how to do the right thing because the world is full of temptations.” Therefore, you must “always let your conscience be your guide.”
Then, the conscientious cricket launched into his explanation of conscience: “The wrong things that seem right at the time but even though the right things may seem wrong sometimes, sometimes the wrong things may be right at the wrong time or vice-versa. Understand?”
Master Cricket may have been less a disciple of St. Thomas Aquinas than a forerunner of the late great Yogi Berra, who once explained to his troops that “good pitching beats good hitting every time, and vice-versa.”
Pinocchio, needless to say, is dumbfounded. Yet, despite the cricket’s convoluted gobbledygook, this amusing cinematic segment made two things clear to me: 1) that you must have a properly functioning conscience in order to be a complete person; 2) that although conscience is essential for a good life, it is very difficult to explain.
And now that I have arrived at man’s estate, I endeavor to offer a clearer explanation of conscience than what the dutiful Professor Cricket had to offer. But what can we expect from a cricket?
The first thing to know about conscience is contained in the very etymology of the word. “Conscience” means con + scientia, or “with knowledge.” Consequently, knowledge serves as the basis for conscience. There can be no correct formation of conscience without knowledge. This knowledge is objective and reliable. In a word, it represents truth.
The great paradox of conscience is that although it abides within us, even at the core of our personality, it is tied to the external world of truth. Conscience is neither purely subjective not purely objective; it is like the living current that flows from the opposite poles of a battery. Conscience connects us with the world of moral values.
This truth is not invented, but discovered. Conscience does not make laws; it respects them. St. John Paul’s phrase, Veritatis Splendor (the title of his most morality centered encyclical), indicates that truth has a certain splendor or light by which it can be recognized. Truth should not be regarded as obscure, hidden, or confusing. Truth greets the mind as light enters the eye. Conscience, then, does not create norms, but discovers them in the objective order of morality.
Conscience needs truth in order to function. But it has an equal reliance on freedom. Let us imagine a triangle whose three sides are composed of truth, freedom, and conscience. Without truth, we have impulse, urge, feeling, hunch, caprice, guess, or whim. Nietzsche exemplified this error when he substituted “sublimated instinct” for conscience.
On the other hand, without freedom we have a requirement, an imperative, necessity, imposition, demand, compulsion, or determination. Here, Sigmund Freud constructed the “super-ego” as an unavoidable compromise between the demands of instinct and the restrictions of society. For the pioneer of modern psychology, there was no room for freedom.
If we reduce the triangle to three separate and independent lines, we find that truth, freedom, and conscience go nowhere. People love freedom, but they often do not understand it. They love conscience, but often separate it from its rectifying basis. They love truth, but only when it serves their individual purposes.
Conscience without truth is blind; conscience without freedom is compulsion. Conscience, then, is the faculty or power within us that is capable of a free and creative acceptance of the truth which serves as a guide for our moral actions.
Let us offer but one example.
We know that the truth about marriage excludes adultery, since adultery can be destructive of the faithful bond that exists between husband and wife. When conscience freely accepts this truth, it informs us to accept the truth about marriage and avoid or reject adultery.
When we act contrary to what we know to be right, we experience guilt. Guilt, then, is nothing more than the recognition of our complicity in wrongdoing. It is the recognition that our faults are not in the stars, but in us.
St. John Paul II has identified conscience in a most helpful as well as eloquent way. Conscience, he writes, is “the sacred core and sanctuary of man, where he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depth.”
We should not be listening to the voice of the masses or the siren song of secular society, or the arbitrary constructions of political correctness. God is the author of the moral order and in attending to it, we are at the same time, listening to Him.
We must be conscientious about conscience for it is our guide, our glory, and our gift from God.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus, St. Jerome’s University; an adjunct professor, Holy Apostles College & Seminary; a senior fellow, Human Life International; and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review.
(He has authored 28 books. His latest book is In Praise of Life [available through Amazon.com]. Some of his recent writings are posted on “Truth and Charity Forum.”)
