The role of the Catholic Church in Formation of Conscience

The role of the Catholic Church in Formation of Conscience

The general concept of conscience is a term that describes self-awareness. In Christianity however, the definition goes a notch deeper. In Christianity, conscience is the internal rational capacity of a person that gives room for the voice of God (Carter, 2014). Some years ago, there was a common trend in films or classic comics where the main character had the trouble of making a significant decision. On each shoulder of the cast would appear an animated version of the figure where the dark one would represent temptation whereas the brighter one would serve conscience. Therefore, conscience is a God-given innate ability that enables the inner self to recognize between right or wrong. The Catholic Church defines conscience explicitly as a judgment of reasons whereby a person acknowledges the best quality of a concrete act that one is about to do in the process of doing or already done. All Christians, regardless of their denomination, have the Holy Bible as their guide. They follow the teachings and rely on it to always remain faithful to God. Whatever they perform, they expect their conscience to lead them to do what is right as per the teachings. Hence, this essay will discuss the role the Catholic Church plays in the formation of conscience.

Conscience comes from inside of a person but, it gets developed at a very early age. Children get taught how to acquire proper attitudes, morals, and behavior towards other people in society from a tender age. Freud defined conscience as the development of the superego, a result of the internalization of parental values, and positive inter-individual behavior toward others, which is maintained through a sense of guilt (Killen et al., 2015 pg 4). The utilization of conscience heavily relies on the discipline strategies that one faced as a child. Conscience in children is most often measured in terms of behavioral and emotional responses, including resistance to temptation and self-regulation (Killen et al., 2015 pg 4).  Therefore, children are encouraged to start thinking about the outcome of every activity they may be planning to perform, and as a result, they develop awareness of the consequence of every action and in the process gets to know what is right and wrong.

Children learn from the society around them, primarily their parents. When a child gets repeatedly rewarded for imitative behavior, they tend to pick up the behavior fast compared to when the action is repeatedly reprimanded (Hill, 1960 pg 4). Therefore, through reprimand or reward, children learn and develop what justice is, how to control temperance, be courageous and honest with every person and every action they take. Since children take up behaviors easily, parents get advised that the best period to develop a substantial moral standard is while one is still a child, and thus why parents start to mold their children when they are still young.

It is evident that conscience is acquired and developed by society. Development of a mutually responsive orientation between a parent and a child sensitizes that the child learns proper conduct, codes of caring for others and committed compliance (Killen et al., 2015 pg 5). Therefore, it is evident that conscience is a principle, and a person of conscience is a person of ethical principle. It is essential that all people connected to children endeavor to display good morals so that the children can learn from them while they are young to ensure that they grow in the right manner to fight the challenges they may come across and be victorious.

The Catholic Church strives to bring children up with the right morals to develop a moral conscience. In the Catholic faith, before a child receives the Holy Communion, they must attend catechism where they not only learn about the history and organization of the Church but also critical Christian values. The children get taught on the significance of Godly values and laws that govern day-to-day activities of a Christian of the Catholic faith.

The early Christians maintained specific social values not only as obedience to God but also as part of their witness to outsiders and part of their missionary activities; values like charity, mutual support, self-control, and others drew people to Christianity (Dreyer, 2016 pg 5). Therefore, the clean conscience, as well as attractive morals of the first Christians, attracted non-Christians to Christianity. According to the Catholic faith, teachings on the issue of conscience are very extensive. Conscience teachings clarify to all individuals that under no circumstance should a person violate their conscience. The instructions require that one should always follow their inner moral conscience. Various scriptures from the Bible support the Catholic understanding of conscience. For instance, the book of Hebrews refers to conscience as typically understanding and a feeling of own heart or the voice of God in one’s soul, and thus, the church has maintained those guidelines as the core to the idea of conscience.

St Paul always emphasized on the importance of maintaining a clear conscience during his teachings.  For Paul, the judgment of his conscience was a matter of primary, and as such, he held it aloft against his adversaries to refute all questioning of the validity of his mission and his moral integrity as the apostle (Machineck, 2017 pg 2). According to St. Paul, conscience was the Godly source of moral judgment, and therefore, it needed direction and illumination. Thus, although every person has a conscience, some people prefer to shun it to avoid feeling guilty after making morally wrong decisions. The teaching of the Catholic Church, however, insists that people should not violate the moral conscience instilled in their childhood.

In Romans 10:17, St. Paul reminds Christians that “faith comes from what is heard.” The teachings show that the conscience of Christians gets developed and shaped by their faith.

According to the Bible, Faith is one of the many gifts of the Holy Spirit, and whose soft power grows to maturity but remains to be a sanctifier, ruler, and teacher of the Christians. In the church, the first teachers of the faith of a child are parents, guardians or any other church members who may be around as the child is growing. All social behavior is not necessarily moral behavior; the bar for what counts as moral is more stringent and includes an obligation to treat others in a fair and just manner (Killen et al., 2015 pg 6). Therefore it is not enough that children observe to learn; instead, children should also learn of what society expects of them despite the erroneous behaviors they may see from wayward adults. As such, in a church environment, children are taught by catechists, local clergy and school teachers who are mandated to ensure that the child grows in the likeness of God. To ensure that faith is genuine good, the Catholic Church provides that the life of a child is sought and chosen in a manner that goes in line with the biblical teachings.

The Catholic Church teaches Christians that their conscience comes from the Lord. The book of Genesis in support of the argument states that “Every single person is made in the image of God” (Gen 1:26-27). The Bible verse implies that human beings are the image of God and God himself gives them specific characteristics. One of those things that God gave human beings is ‘moral code.’ Moreover, Christians emulate St Paul as the hallmark of clean conscience and morality. Before Saint Paul converted into Christianity, he was a prosecutor of Christians, and at one time, he even carried the cloaks of other executioners as they stoned a Christian to death. Later, on his way to Damascus to execute more Christians, he heard the voice of God appealing to his conscience, and from that day onward, Saint Paul converted to Christianity and played a significant role in spreading the gospel. Therefore, Saint Paul stands out as a person who once violated his conscience when trying to fit in with other anti-Christians. However, he recognized his conscience which eventually led him to the truth of the gospel. Therefore, concerning modern Catholic teaching, Saint Paul does not expect his adversaries to manifest their tolerance, but rather, an ability to recognize the truth and acknowledge it in their consciences (Machinek, 2017 pg 4).

Also, Christians are expected to maintain a clear conscience by always doing right and avoiding what is wrong, and the scripture supports this, “Given this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men” (Acts 24:16). Christians get reminded of how disciples of Jesus maintained a clear conscience without lying and always did what their conscience told them was right as the Christian should always do, “Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day”( Acts 23:1). However, in as much as Saint Paul calls upon all Christians to lead a life with a clear conscience, he still insists on the importance of faith. Since in Catholic teaching a clean conscience implies living within the Godly values and law, one cannot achieve clear conscience in a belief they do not believe. Therefore, before any Christian strives to attain a blameless conscience, they should first develop their faith in Christ and cultivate an active relationship with the Messiah. Any Christian, who gains living trust, automatically lives with a clean conscience since he or she cannot go against the teaching of their faith.

Catholic catechism teaches that with a conscience, Christians discover a law inside them that they had not experienced before and which they must obey. Catholic believers refer to conscience as an ever-persistent calling for doing what is right and avoiding evil. The Catechism teaches Christians always to make use of their conscience because it enables them to weigh everything they say and do. The Catholic Church gives every person freedom of determining whether they have the right conscience or not. One of the rules that come with having a right conscience is that a person may never do evil to get the correct result. People are supposed to carry this with them as their golden rule “whatever you wish men to do to you, do so to them” (Matt 7:12). Hence Christians are always taught to respect others for them to get accorded similar respect.

Conscience plays a vital role in ethical decision making. Ethics dictate what is wrong or right. In a corporate environment, Christians get faced with a difficult task of making ethical decisions even when the company policies go against their conscience. However, Christians are expected to stand out and speak against moral corruption without fear or reprimand. Employees of high integrity and ethical standards always stand out in an organization (Wang et al., 2018 pg 25). As such, Christians should not fear to oppose company policies that go against their conscience. However, Catholic Church encourages believers to follow their conscience but at the same time ensure that one does not distort the meaning of that principle because, the church giving people freedom of following their conscience, we get the skill to develop and grow our ability to make the right decisions.

In conclusion, although the understanding of the concept of conscience continues to face debate, the Catholic Church teaching insists on the development of good morals. The instruction in the Holy Scriptures echoes that faith is the basis of acquiring a clear conscience. The Catholic Church starts molding young children by taking them through catechism classes where they are taught the value of good morals in Christianity. Furthermore, the Catholic Church allows believers to execute their conscience freely in an attempt to help them develop their ability to make wise and Godly decisions. Therefore, the Catholic Church plays a significant role in the formation of conscience.

References

Carter, J. (2014, March Tuesday). What is Conscience? Retrieved April Wednesday, 2019, from The Gospel Coalition: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-is-conscience/

Dreyer, W., 2016. Church, mission and ethics. Being church with integrity. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 72(1).

Hill, W.F., 1960. Learning theory and the acquisition of values. Psychological Review, 67(5), p.317.

Killen, M. and Smetana, J.G., 2015. Origins and development of morality. Handbook of child psychology and developmental science, 3(7), pp.701-749.

Machinek, M., 2017. “My Conscience is Clear”(1 Cor 4: 4). The Potential Relevance of Paul’s Understanding of Conscience for Today’s Fundamental Moral Theology. Religions, 8(10), p.201.

Version, K.J., 2017. Holy Bible. Arcturus Publishing Limited.

Wang, Z., Xu, H. and Liu, Y., 2018. How does ethical leadership trickle down? Test of an integrative dual-process model. Journal of Business Ethics, 153(3), pp.691-705.