Conscience

The Conscience in the Bible

'For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do.'

- Paul is struggling with the ways his actions conflict with his internal sense of what is right and     wrong. 

'So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.'

- Some see the conscience as an aspect of humanity that was made in the image of God (Imago Dei), we were created with the ability to discern right from wrong. 

Aquinas' appraoch to the conscience

• He didn't believe that the conscienc e was an independent power capable of telling us what is right or wrong. 
• He believed that the conscience was instead an aspect of human reasoning. 
• It is our conscious that separates from God's other creations. 
• Reason is a gift from God, it has been placed in everyone because we are all made in God's image and likeness. 
• Ratio enables us to work things out and make judgments about them.
• Within each person is the synderesis principle, this encourages us to do good and avoid evil. 
• We can cultivate synderesis in ourselces through effort, this will mean that it becomes a habit. 
• If we try to do Good then our reason will help us 
• Our consciences are binding this is because it is wrong to go against reason, he believed that we must do what we believe to be right as well as this Aquinas thought that we have a duty to make sure our reason is well-informed. 
• We cannot be blamed if we follow our consciences when we make moral judgements based on our knowledge but they can sometimes lead us to do the wrong thing. 
• There are two types of ignorance: Vincible and Invincible
• Vincible knowledge:
  • A lack of knowledge that we could have done something about 
  • If we do the wrong thing through…