Conscience Is the Voice of God

“Conscience is the Voice of God.” Discuss

There are many views on conscience and some theologists such as; St Augustine, Newman and Joseph Butler believe that it is the voice of God which helps us see moral faculty, to have a sense of feeling which compels individual to have a moral sense between from what is right to what is wrong. However, this view has been challenged by Sigmund Freud who developed an influential theory of personality to explain how we use our conscience and how it develops subconsciously.

Aquinas took a different approach and did not believe that “Conscience was the “voice of God”, as he saw conscience as the natural ability of people to understand the difference between right and wrong.  He thought it was a God- given faculty of reason and that all people should aim for what is good and try to avoid the bad, and he called this rule as “synderesis”. He felt that it was innate for someone to seek the good and saw that sin was subsiding god’s ideals, which was seeking what people think, is good and is actually bad because they were not using their power of reasons properly.   Aquinas supposed that with this subconscious ability that we can grasp the basic purposes of human life, such as being able to survive, learn, reproduce, defend the innocent, worship God and defend the innocent lives of others.  Aquinas understood that people may live in different societies of life and have different views of what is right and what is wrong, although he thinks that people should follow their own conscience, and does take into account that some people may make the wrong choices. However he argued that conscience “was the mind of man making moral judgements” and described it as containing two essential parts- synderesis and conscientia.  “Conscientia “ is the rational ability to distinguish between different courses of actions.  Therefore conscience is far from being the “the voice of God” but neither is it learnt. A key point is that we may be able to learn to use our moral judgement more effectively, but conscience is the “dictate of reason”. Conscience is a God-given ability, not something learnt and not the” voice of God”.

Critics of this approach would say that Aquinas’s rationalistic approach does not consider revelation that comes directly from God. However the key strengths of this theory include that it appeals to human beings to their use of reason. Also, as it can appeal to all people religious or not it is Universal as people can be moral and good. In addition, it has a value of claiming to represent a deontologist interpretation of conscience because it is based on duty.  Aquinas’s approach enables us to adapt and to learn from right and wrong as a result we need to educate it as it is infallible. We follow our conscience as it is the right thing to do and it is simply not we want to do. Thus, we must take responsibility and be mature.  On the other hand some may say does everybody really have an innate desire to do good and avoid evil?  Is Conscience not a separate faculty that also connects to the emotional part of our personality?

However this view contradicts the theory in which St Augustine of Hippo proposed as he understood that conscience was the voice of God speaking to an individual in solitary moments which bring us closer to God and as a framework it helps us to observe God’s Laws.  He proposed the idea that when we listen to our conscience we are actually hearing the voice of God telling us about what is right and what is wrong. However, some may say then, if we do something that is wrong, is that not then God’s fault and not our own doing. He insisted that all Christians are to be concerned with their conscience although, according to Augustine he said “humans have an innate capacity to know the difference between what is right and wrong” to which he then referred to people who act immorally even though everyone has a conscience, it is not enough as you also need God’s grace. Therefore, he came up with three ideas one of which was God implants the knowledge into us of what is right and what is wrong and is known through conscience.  He also stated that for a person to act morally that we must have God’s grace and for the action to be right, it needs to bring us closer to God. For example, giving money to the poor is only right if you do it in the love of God instead of doing it for a reward. If we give to the poor for any other reason then the act is morally wrong. Augustine claimed that the most important part of moral decision making is conscience, however, this view was criticised as people believed that it was the authority of the church and the Bible were more important.

 A key problem with this argument, is what if our Conscience was telling us to do bad things? Many would argue that it goes against the teachings of the church and find it hard to accept weather it is the voice of God but our self- conscience within us. Therefore, should we always follow our conscience when it tells us to do bad things? Another problem with this argument is that some people may be lead to different views of what is morally right or wrong. This can be seen when someone sees an attack, they may call the police for help, or another person may just walk away. Also if one does not believe in God can they be then left accountable for someone doing wrong? On the other hand, there are some key strengths within this argument as it provides a framework to explain the need to be moral that is evident in all of us, and it explains why people act in a similar way. For example, most would agree that stealing is wrong. It also allows objective morality for universal principles that all people should follow, leading to the belief in equal human rights, a rejection of torture and arbitrary arrest, important ideas in the current discussion around the ethics of war.