Conscience: Freud and Aquinas by Germain Grisez

Source http://twotlj.org/G-1-3-C.html

The different senses of the word “conscience”

Sometimes “conscience” is used to refer to feelings which have no direct relationship with objective moral truth.

The feelings arising from Freud’s idea of the superego and the awareness of social conventions are both often called “conscience,” but they need not correspond to moral truth.¹

“Superego” refers to the subconscious source of one’s sense of guilt at the emotional level. This is formed by early training aged 3-5 years, argues Freud. The child who misbehaves is blamed, and experiences inner conflict, which is repugnant. As a consequence, the demands of parents and others on whom the child depends become internalized as an authority over (super) the conscious self (ego). Parents are not always reasonable, however, and the child’s own inclinations are distorted, so Christians believe, by the inherited effects of sin; thus superego tends to be rigid, nonrational, sometimes oppressive, and often irrelevant to what is truly humanly good and bad.

People are also aware of the requirements set by society, and they generally call violations of social conventions “wrong.” Authority at this level is located in the group. To the extent we identify with a group, we makes its demands our own; to the extent we are not wholly identified with a group, we feels its demands to be impositions. Even in the latter case, though, the demands may be accepted as the price of belonging. Most social requirements have at least some basis in moral truth. Yet because various groups have interests which are not always reasonable and which often conflict with one another, social convention also is often at odds with what is truly humanly good and bad.

Many people of limited maturity of conscience perceive the Church’s moral teaching at the legalistic level of social convention. They do not clearly understand that it is more than a God-given body of rules we must accept in order to enjoy the benefits of Church membership. Compulsive and guilty feelings at the level of superego are also sometimes very strong in such persons.

It is unnecessary here to investigate the complex psychology of guilt feelings. The important point is that superego has to do with guilt only in a secondary and derivative sense, for it is tied to the whole pre-moral phase of personal development.

Genuine conscience is an awareness of responsibility assessed by a judgment derived from some principle one understands in itself or accepts from a source (such as the Church’s teaching) to which one has intelligently and freely committed oneself.

Once conscience is developing and the personality is being integrated in a mature way, feelings of guilt will more and more coincide with choices one knows to be wrong and will be in proportion to how serious one judges the wrong to be.

Such maturing takes time and is achieved in some areas of life more easily than others. Adolescent rebelliousness consists in part of an attempt to overcome childish principles of right and wrong, and the superego guilt which enforces them. To the extent that the superego persists without being integrated into mature morality, people remain in an adolescent posture toward all authorities. Thus many Catholics feel childish guilt when they violate the Church’s moral teaching, especially in the area of sex, and resent the Church’s authority much as rebellious adolescents resent parental authority.

This resentment shapes and colours the entire attitude of many Catholics to the Church. They fail to see moral teaching as a gift of truth; they entirely miss their responsibility to share in a common task of communicating God’s truth and love to others. They want the Church to change her teaching, for they think such a change would relieve their feelings of guilt, and they consciously or unconsciously assume that the teaching could be changed, much as a parental decision that it is time to go to bed can be changed.²

Conscience as an awareness of moral truth

Only at this level are moral good and evil fully understood and rightly located in the freely choosing person who confronts the reality of the world and human possibilities. Wrongdoing is seen to lie either in refusing to make the commitments and enter into the communities in which one might hope to be fulfilled, or in betraying commitments and failing to meet responsibilities once they are accepted.

Judgments of right and wrong by a person with a mature conscience express more than early training or awareness of what is socially required. They say what ought to be required, what one will require of oneself if one is reasonable. To think of morality as an area in which one is made to feel guilty or as a set of rules someone else imposes expresses an immature conscience. By contrast, a person of mature conscience thinks of morality as a matter of real human goodness and reasonableness. For such a person, to do what is wrong is a kind of self-mutilation.³

The forbidden and the permissible are not the exclusive or even primary concerns of a mature conscience. A person of mature conscience does not ask, “What is the minimum I have to do? How far can I go in doing what I please?” These questions express at least a residue of superego and social convention. Rather, a mature Christian conscience seeks to determine the implications of faith for one’s entire life: “What is the good and holy thing to do? What is Christ’s mind on this matter? How can I do God’s will in my life?” (see Mt 5.38–48; Rom 12.1–2; Phil 4.8–9; Col 3.12–17).⁴

One may sum up the distinction between the three senses of “conscience” as follows.

Freud’s superego is not really ‘moral’

First, the superego is not really moral at all, in the sense that it offers no reason for acting as distinct from a feeling. Social convention is moral in the sense that it offers reasons for acting as distinct from nonrational determinants of action. However, at this level reasons for acting need only be grounded in one’s actual desires, not in human goods understood as valuable in themselves. By contrast, moral truth is based on reasons which are fully intelligible, not merely factual.

Second, the superego is concerned only with a certain area of behavior, namely, behavior subject to disapproval, which leads to guilt feelings. The remainder of the infant’s behavior is free. Social convention also is limited to a restricted field, namely, that in which a reason for acting is backed by a social sanction. Apart from this, choices seem morally indifferent. Moral truth in its full development is not restricted to any area of behavior, although it comes to bear only when there is some possibility of free choice.

Third, the superego is most concerned with outward performances, which can cause trouble. Social convention is primarily concerned with good intentions; the individual must accept the authority. Moral truth is concerned with integral human fulfillment, which primarily exists in existential goods—that is, in various forms of peace and harmony within persons and among them.

Fourth, the superego generates a sense of compulsion; one has to abide by its dictates or suffer the pain of violating them. Social convention generates a sense of obligation; one either abides by the rules or is criticized and cut off from what one wants. Moral truth generates responsibility; fulfillment of others and of oneself depends on oneself, and consistency with one’s own care for fulfillment requires one to act reasonably for it.

Fifth, the superego defines the self as a person of others—for example, the child of these parents. The little child tries to be like and to fit in with the parents. Conventional morality defines the self in part negatively, by efforts to be different from others, and in part affirmatively, by the set of goals it encourages one to pursue in the society—for example, the adolescent tries to accomplish certain things and to make something of himself or herself. Moral truth defines the self by commitments and communion—for example, “I am a Christian.”

Still, these three stages are not in watertight compartments. Even small children already have some understanding of basic human goods, and this understanding shapes their action. By the time they are six or eight, most children are somewhat aware that fairness is not merely a device, but something of an ideal. Conversely, the superego can and should continue to develop in all one’s personal relationships; it provides an immediate sense of the cost of being offensive to those one cares about. Similarly, conventional morality, to the extent that it is grounded in moral truth, can be incorporated in a mature conscience as the legal embodiment of norms.

Conscience in the teaching of the Church

Church documents never use the word “conscience” to mean superego or awareness of social convention.

The Church is interested in conscience only in the third sense, as the ability to know moral truth.

In Scripture the judgment of conscience often is attributed to the “heart” (see Jb 27.6; Ps 16.7), which receives and retains God’s law (see Dt 6.6–9; Ps 37.31; 40.9; Prv 7.1–3) and which can be enlightened by his gift of wisdom (see Ps 90.12; Prv 2.9–11).

Again, the work of conscience in Christian life is assigned to the renewed “mind” (see Rom 12.1–2). But the technical term “conscience” seldom is used; indeed, no Hebrew word exists for this specific concept. In the New Testament “conscience” refers mainly to awareness of wrongdoing, especially the pangs experienced after one has done wrong.⁶

Although they lack divine revelation, even the Gentiles are said to have this awareness of right and wrong; it is part of the human make up created by God. Conscience, which is joined to knowledge of moral norms written in the heart, serves the Gentile as the demand of the revealed law serves the Jew (see Rom 2.14–16).

As a source of warnings, conscience is helpful for Christians, too, much as law is. But it is not infallible. A clear conscience does not necessarily mean one is justified (see 1 Cor 4.4–5); and one’s heart can charge one with something even though one is at peace with God (see 1 Jn 3.19–20).

Vatican II emphasizes the dignity of conscience, a dignity rooted in the law written in our hearts. We do not make this law; we discover it (see S.t., 1–2, q. 91, a. 3, ad 2). It consists of a group of moral principles which God gave us in creating us and which we can know naturally. Although this law written in our hearts is made up of general principles, it has implications for particular moral issues (see GS 16).

As used by Vatican II, “conscience” refers at once to awareness of principles of morality, to the process of reasoning from principles to conclusions, and to the conclusions, which are moral judgments on choices made or under consideration.

Synderesis and Conscientia

St. Thomas uses a particular word for each: “synderesis” for awareness of principles, “practical reasoning” for the process of moving from principles to conclusions, and “conscience” or conscientia for the concluding judgment only (see S.t., 1, q. 79, aa. 12–13; 1–2, q. 94, aa. 2, 6).

According to St. Thomas, conscience is an intellectual act of judgment. This judgment is primarily practical and forward-looking, corresponding to and guiding each choice one is about to make. Conscience is one’s last and best judgment concerning what one should choose. With this judgment in mind, one chooses, either in agreement with conscience or against it (see S.t., 1, q. 79, a. 13).⁷

Conscience plays a further role after choice. One compares the choice one actually made with one’s judgment as to the choice one ought to have made (for example, in examining one’s conscience). Even here, conscience is an act of knowledge, not to be confused with feelings of guilt or security, which may also be present.

Given this understanding of conscience, it is true by definition that one ought to follow one’s conscience. As one’s best judgment concerning what is right and wrong, an upright person has no alternative to following it. “Follow conscience” does not indicate one possible source of moral guidance in contrast to some other possible source or sources; supposing one thought in some case that it was better to follow a norm other than that previously provided by conscience, by that very fact the new norm would become one’s real judgment of conscience.

The teaching of Vatican II on conscience is mainly contained in one article of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (GS 16). It deserves close reading.

“In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of this law can when necessary speak to his heart more specifically: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged” (GS 16).

At this point the Council refers to what is probably the most important passage in Scripture in which “conscience” occurs:

“When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them. On that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Rom 2.14–16).

The law mentioned here is called “natural law” in Catholic teaching. It is known by everyone, even persons who do not have faith, for its demands are “written in their hearts”—that is, known spontaneously. Conscience here is a co-witness with the law. The two together will accuse or defend, which implies that they must agree with each other. Vatican II expresses the same idea in its image of conscience as a voice of the law written by God in the heart—God writing it by creating persons of human nature.

The use of the scriptural word “hearts” does not mean that conscience is considered by St. Paul or Vatican II a power of feeling what is right or a disposition to love what is good. “Heart” in the Bible has a much wider reference than in current English. The reference includes the whole of one’s interior life, including one’s mind and will.⁸

Vatican II continues with a metaphorical description of conscience taken from a document of Pius XII:

“Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths. In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbour” (GS 16).

Here the Council refers to the precept of love formulated in the New Testament (see Mt 22.37–40; Gal 5.14). Implicit is the statement: The law Christian love fulfills and must fulfill is the natural law (see S.t., 1–2, q. 99, a. 1, ad 2; q. 100, a. 3, ad 1; q. 105, a. 2, ad 1; S.c.g., 3, 117).

Since conscience expresses the natural law, which can be known by everyone, and since this law is objective, the Council proceeds to point out:

“In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals and from social relationships. Hence the more that a correct conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by objective norms of morality” (GS 16).

Here the Council speaks of “correct conscience.” When correct, conscience demands that one be reasonable, not arbitrary; that one conform to objective or true norms, not to subjective substitutes chosen arbitrarily. But conscience is not always correct; the Council distinguishes two ways in which conscience goes wrong. (These will be considered in question C below.)

Vatican II teaches that every human person has a right to religious freedom (DH). This teaching often has been misunderstood and sometimes has been exploited to promote a false conception of freedom of conscience. John Courtney Murray, S.J., the theological expert whose work was most fruitful for the development of this document, comments:

 “It is worth noting that the Declaration does not base the right to the free exercise of religion on ‘freedom of conscience.’ Nowhere does this phrase occur. And the Declaration nowhere lends its authority to the theory for which the phrase frequently stands, namely, that I have the right to do what my conscience tells me to do, simply because my conscience tells me to do it. This is a perilous theory. Its particular peril is subjectivism—the notion that, in the end, it is my conscience, and not the objective truth, which determines what is right or wrong, true or false.”⁹

Vatican II does teach about conscience in this document (DH 3 and 14), but in a very traditional way.

Errors of conscience

Experience, Scripture, and the Church’s teaching agree that judgments of conscience can be in error. The law of God written in one’s heart can be misapplied in one’s judgments. Mistakes are possible in formulating principles, reasoning from them, and considering the facts involved in the possible choices which are to be morally evaluated (see S.t., 1–2, q. 19, aa. 5–6; q. 94, aa. 4, 6; cf. 2–2, q. 48, a. 1).¹⁰

According to common Christian teaching, one must follow one’s conscience even when it is mistaken.

St. Thomas explains this as follows. Conscience is one’s last and best judgment as to the choice one ought to make. If this judgment is mistaken, one does not know it at the time. One will follow one’s conscience if one is choosing reasonably. To the best of one’s knowledge and belief, it is God’s plan and will. So if one acts against one’s conscience, one is certainly in the wrong (see S.t., 1–2, q. 19, aa. 5–6).¹¹

Thomas drives home his point. If a superior gives one an order which cannot be obeyed without violating one’s conscience, one must not obey. To obey the superior in this case would be to disobey what one believes to be the mind and will of God (see S.t., 1–2, q. 19, a. 5, ad 2; 2–2, q. 104, a. 5).¹² It is good to abstain from fornication. But if one’s conscience is that one should choose to fornicate, one does evil if one does not fornicate. Indeed, to believe in Jesus is in itself good and essential for salvation; but one can only believe in him rightly if one judges that one ought to. Therefore, one whose conscience is that it is wrong to believe in Jesus would be morally guilty if he or she chose against this judgment.¹³

Still, one is not necessarily guiltless in following a conscience which is in error. If the error is one’s own fault, one is responsible for the wrong one does in following erroneous conscience. As Vatican II teaches:

“Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said when someone cares but little for truth and goodness, and conscience by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of a practice of sinning” (GS 16).

St. Thomas asks: Does erring conscience excuse? Is one who conforms to conscience when it is mistaken nevertheless sometimes morally guilty of the wrong choice? The answer is: Sometimes, yes. One must follow one’s conscience, since it is one’s last and best judgment as to what one should choose. But the error in judgment can be one’s own fault. This is so if one somehow chooses to stay in ignorance about one’s responsibilities or if one fails in any way to do all one should to know what is right and bring this knowledge to bear in one’s judgment of conscience. If one’s erroneous conscience is in any way one’s own fault, to that extent one’s action in conformity with erroneous conscience is one’s fault. One has an obligation to avoid mistakes in conscience so far as possible by informing oneself fully and by conscientiously thinking out what one should choose.¹⁴If one does not fulfill this obligation, one’s choice in accord with an erring conscience is not blameless (see S.t., 1–2, q. 6, a. 8; q. 19, a. 6; q. 74, a. 5; q. 76, aa. 2–3).

This conclusion seems to entail that in some cases one is damned if one does and damned if one does not follow conscience. Thomas points out that if one’s mistake is in no way one’s own fault—if ignorance is invincible—then one is not damned if one does follow conscience. There is no moral fault here at all. If one’s erroneous conscience is somehow one’s own fault, then one has a way out: Ignorance is vincible and voluntary. One can inform oneself and ought to do so (see S.t.,1–2, q. 19, a. 6, ad 3).¹⁵

Errors in conscience are one’s own fault if one chooses to remain ignorant of one’s responsibilities or fails to do all one should to know what is right and bring this knowledge to bear upon one’s choices. Conscience entails moral responsibility. One’s first responsibility is to form conscience rightly so that one’s moral judgments will be true.¹⁶

Sometimes people who are in error through their own fault suspect the possibility of error and are in a position to correct it. In such cases, where ignorance is voluntary and vincible, there is an alternative to remaining in bad faith and following erroneous conscience: Replace the false judgment of conscience with a true one and then follow correct conscience in an upright way.

Sometimes, however, people who are voluntarily in error eventually become insensitive to the possibility that their consciences are erroneous (see S.t., 1–2, q. 79, a. 3; q. 85, a. 2). Rationalization and self-deception make it almost impossible for them to acknowledge error about a particular matter. People whose consciences are in error through such a process are responsible for the erroneous judgment. Although they must follow the erroneous judgment as long as it seems certainly correct, doing so does not entirely free them from guilt.

The condition of a conscience voluntarily fixed in error through rationalization and self-deception is what Vatican II has in mind in speaking of a conscience “practically sightless as a result of a practice of sinning” (GS 16). The possibility that this state of conscience might actually exist in anyone is often ignored today. Nevertheless Scripture speaks of such guilty blindness, which is closely related to hardness of heart (see Is 6.9–10; Prv 28.14; Jn 3.19–21; 9.39–41; 12.35–43).

Christians should realize that if they care little for the truth of Christ and for living lives like his, even their consciences can become blind and unreliable. The process by which this comes about might, for example, include studying only those theological opinions which dissent from the Church’s teaching and purposely seeking direction and support from confessors or other spiritual advisors who apply dissenting opinions.

Those who do this are not blameless, yet they cannot easily overcome their error. At times their conscience probably bothers them, but they are locked in the box of their own “conscience,” for they hardly can admit that their judgment and ongoing way of life, supported by the opinions of others, are erroneous. “Why doesn’t the Church change her teaching? Pope John Paul II seems to be such a fine man; why must he be so rigid on this matter?”

In the present cultural period the reality of moral evil is somewhat hidden. This general climate of opinion makes it very difficult for Christians to recognize and admit their own moral guilt. Such recognition and admission are important not only for moral improvement, but even more because we cannot accept and be thankful for God’s merciful love if we do not acknowledge everything on our consciences and seek his forgiveness.

Conscience can make blameless mistakes

Sometimes people do things on the basis of mistakes of fact; they would have acted otherwise had they known better. One has a moral obligation to try to determine facts in important matters, and also to proceed on the safe side in guesses about factual matters when important moral obligations are to be fulfilled (see 12‑B). However, one can and often does make mistakes of fact. In cases of this sort, the judgment of conscience based on false information is not itself in error.

For example, a woman takes what she thinks to be a safe sleeping pill, prescribed by her doctor, because she is restless during the early weeks of pregnancy. The pill turns out to cause severe, congenital defects in the child whom she wished only to protect by caring for her own health. Had she only known, she would have done otherwise. However, her conscientious decision to go to a physician about her difficulties in early pregnancy and to follow the prescription she received was perfectly sound. The error was not at all in conscience.

The error of fact can be about a moral fact. For example, a child is sent by parents to what is recommended as an excellent Catholic school. The parents decide to do this at great sacrifice out of a sense of duty, because of the bad moral atmosphere of the local public school. At the Catholic school, some of the teachers who are depraved seduce the child. The parents wrongly feel somehow at fault.

It is easy for persons who are developing a genuine conscience to mistake the deliverances of superego or social convention for moral truths. For example, some good Germans who had developed but imperfectly integrated consciences rightly judged (as a matter of moral truth) that they had to resist certain Nazi decrees, yet felt guilty and unpatriotic about it. In some matters, these lower levels of conscience probably confused their judgments, so that they did not see clearly how little responsibility they had toward that regime. Thus they were restrained from more bold action by blameless confusion of conscience.

Within the sphere of moral reasoning itself, blameless errors also are possible. For example, one can easily absolutize a nonabsolute norm, failing to notice that additional intelligible factors call for reconsideration. Again, one can notice that an action is consistent with several basic principles of morality and mistakenly conclude it is morally right, although further inquiry would have indicated that it is not. For instance, one who notices that killing in self-defense is not otherwise immoral might consider it justified in a case in which a Christian should accept death rather than kill in self-defense.

To the extent that one must supplement one’s moral reasoning by appeal to a moral authority, one tends to perceive the norms proposed by that authority as if they were rules of law. Most Catholics thus rely upon the Church’s teaching for normative guidance in some matters in which the norm proposed would not in itself be recognized as a moral truth. This situation is a necessary stage in the development of a fully mature Christian conscience—a stage from which most of us never totally emerge. However, it has its own hazards, which create possibilities of innocent mistakes.

Specific norms which are proposed can be misunderstood. For example, people easily misunderstand the commandment to obey proper authority, not observing that the authority must operate within its due bounds (see S.t., 2–2, q. 104, a. 5). Conversely, they easily misunderstand the duty to make exceptions in the fulfilling of laws, thinking this to be a right to exempt oneself whenever one honestly thinks the lawmaker, if informed of the facts, would consider an exception reasonable (see S.t., 1–2, q. 96, a. 6; 2–2, q. 120, a. 1). Thus, people often are both too strict and too lax, too subservient to laws and not sufficiently submissive to them.

Perhaps even more important, one who looks to a moral authority needs procedural rules for determining in doubtful cases when the authority is proposing a binding norm and what this norm is. This is the role fulfilled by probabilism and the other moral systems. One such procedural rule is: If there is a real doubt whether a binding norm has been proposed, then one is not morally obliged to assume that it has been: “A doubtful law does not oblige.”

This procedural rule presupposes that one has tried to resolve the doubt by investigation and that the doubt is within the framework of the Church’s teaching. However, people informed of this maxim in the course of superficial moral guidance often misunderstand it to mean that moral matters debated by theologians automatically become open questions, so that the norms lose their force.

Even in the cases discussed here, “blameless” mistakes are not always in fact completely blameless. One perhaps failed somewhere to do something one could and should have done; one perhaps was in too much of a hurry to deal with a certain matter and did not give it quite enough attention. However, such faults would be venial sins. Perhaps there is little or no moral error without a basis somewhere in at least a venial sin.