What we think is the right road: The idea of "conscience" is oppressive nonsense. To believe that there is a conscience which should govern our conduct implies that we should let others define our identity or tell us what to do. I believe in Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Whoso would be a man (or woman) must be a nonconformist." I believe in doing your own thing. As Mama Cass once sang, "You gotta make your own kind of music."
But it's the wrong road
We can kill our bodies by acts of omission or commission. That is, we can deny ourselves necessary food, water, or medicine – and die. We can commit an act of violence against ourselves – and die.
We can also kill our consciences by acts of omission or commission. That is, we can deny ourselves necessary wisdom, knowledge, and learning – and spiritually die. And we can commit acts of moral and mental violence against ourselves – and spiritually die.
Among the most difficult Bible passages for us is Our Lord's command: "Let the dead bury the dead" (Mt 8:22/Lk 9:60). We know that the Bible can be read literally and literarily, meaning that there may be moral, anagogical or allegorical senses of understanding of a certain passage. When Our Lord tells us that the dead can bury the dead, He is not literally preaching against burial, which is a corporal work of mercy. Rather, Our Lord is telling us, morally and allegorically, that following Christ is always our first duty, beyond all other duties.
This New Testament passage is often paired with the Old Testament reading from 1 Kings in which Elijah permits Elisha to return for a time to his parents before following him (19:20). Christian discipleship, however, always puts Jesus first. The spiritually dead, or spiritually dying, always find ways and means of delaying or denying the call of Christ. This is the point of St. Paul: "Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Rom 6:11).
Elsewhere, in fact, St. Paul tells us that "you were dead, through the crimes and sins which used to make up your way of life when you were living by the principles of this world, obeying the ruler who dominates the air, the spirit who is at work in those who rebel" (Eph 2:1-2 NJB).
When Jesus tells us that He is the way and the truth, He also tells us that He is the life (Jn 14:6). This is the divine teaching we find in Deuteronomy: "Today I am offering you life and prosperity, death and disaster. If you ... keep his commandments..., you will live" (30:15-16 NJB).
If we keep God's commandments, we live; if we reject His will and His way, we spiritually die. We commit suicide of conscience.
That means that we must keep Our Lord first and foremost. Of course, too often we rebel because we are sinners. Thank God we have the sacrament of confession to express contrition, establish a firm purpose of amendment and be absolved. Confession is not popular, though, for it requires that we examine ourselves against a standard beyond that of our own will and wishes. If I "gotta make (my) own kind of music," then I reject the symphony of God's wisdom and, in place of it, crown myself, as Napoleon once did, as king of my own conscience.
Conscience means "with knowledge." As Second Vatican Council taught us in "Gaudium et Spes": "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 conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man. ...Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality" (16).
We are what we repeatedly do, Aristotle taught us. By insolently refusing to see and listen to what is good, true and beautiful, we are committing "suicide of conscience." We are denying God, for which there are dreadful consequences (Lk 12:9; 2 Tm 2:12).
St. Paul seems to be speaking to us today, just as he spoke to the people of his own time (and as Isaiah had spoken to the people of his time): Much too often, the people "listen and listen but never understand! Look and look but never perceive! This people's heart is torpid, their eyes dulled; they have shut their eyes tight to avoid using their eyes to see, their ears to hear, using their heart to understand, changing their ways and being healed" (Acts 28:26-27 NJB).
"Conscience," Venerable Fulton J. Sheen once wrote, "cannot come to us from the rulings of society; otherwise it would never reprove us when society approves us, nor console us when society condemns."
Conscience is not about conforming to the latest fad or fashion, doing what pleases the crowd. Nor is it being a non-conformist, doing whatever pleases ourselves. Rather, conscience is about conforming our thoughts, words and deeds to the Truth of Christ, which leads to peace and eternal life.
Deacon James H. Toner is currently associated at Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro.