It took me a very long while to realize the difference between my conscience and the voice of God in my life. The journey to this realization was very painful and confusing but it has inspired me to research and write a little about this difference and how it affects our lives and our perceptions of God.
Holman’s Bible Dictionary defines conscience as the: “Human capacity to reflect upon the degree to which one’s behaviour has conformed to moral norms.”
In his classic work Your God Is Too Small Christian scholar, J.B. Phillips, writes with great insight about the conscience:
“Now no serious advocate of a real adult religion would deny the function of conscience, or deny that its voice may at least give an inkling of the moral order that lies behind the obvious world in which we live. Yet to make conscience into a God is a highly dangerous thing to do.”
He then goes on to say: “Conscience can be so easily perverted or morbidly developed in the sensitive person, and so easily ignored and silenced by the insensitive, that it makes a very unsatisfactory god.”
You see our human conscience, while usually quite valuable, must be viewed as something natural which has been affected, or more to the point - tainted, by the entry of sin into the world and human nature. It is not (as I used to subconsciously think) one and the same as the voice of God or the Moral Law of God as given in Scripture (*see note on Moral Relativism at the end of this article).
Our conscience is part of our fallen nature and must therefore be assessed and informed by the Word of God*, the conviction of the Holy Spirit and also by the wisdom of godly men and women in our lives (Proverbs 11:14). The Church Reformer, Martin Luther, stood by his conscience but first qualified that by saying that it was “captive to the Word of God.” He also expressly stated that:
“You should not believe your conscience and your feelings more than the Word which the Lord
who receives sinners preaches to you.” Martin Luther
When the full weight of this truth came to bear upon me it was extraordinarily revolutionary in my life. I began to see God in a new and loving way – not as the merciless despot that was my conscience. The prison walls that blinded me (so to speak) to the true and wonderful nature of God were broken down and His light shone down on me not unlike it did to Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul’s quintessential question, “Who are you Lord?” came to be answered more fully in my heart and mind - and God was good and kind. It is imperative that the Christian, and any person for that matter, understands that the voice of God is gentle, “still and small” and not obnoxious.
Again Phillips speaks about the conscience informing us about God rather than God informing our conscience about Him: “For if it is, God can be made to appear to the sensitive an over-exacting tyrant, and to the insensitive a comfortable accommodating “Voice Within” which would never interfere with a man’s pleasure.”
We notice that this can go both ways – an overly sensitive person may be coerced into thinking God is a “tyrant” while the overly insensitive may see Him as “Grand Old Man” who doesn’t mind all the shady things we do. I have found myself on the far end of “over sensitive” on this spectrum and have learned about how mental health can affect one’s perception of conscience just as much as “upbringing, training and propaganda” (Phillips).
I was finally diagnosed with a severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in my mid- 20’s and began to learn more about how it affects my “conscience”. I learned that there was a subset of OCD that is called Scrupulosity wherein the obsessive and compulsive thoughts focus on moral issues (as opposed to germs or hand-washing). To learn more about Scrupulosity click here.
Now on the other extreme end of this spectrum one might think of a sociopath – a person who has little to no conscience. Some professionals think there is little hope for these people but again there is some evidence that this issue can be addressed through a Moral Law (Like the Bible for instance). For the story of a sociopath (David Wood) who is now a Christian apologist you may want to see this article.
While those were two rather extreme examples, there are millions of normal people (religious and non-religious) who might fall somewhere in the middle of the “Broken Conscience” spectrum. Wherever you find yourself, I would encourage you to inform your conscience from the outside as well. I still struggle with my conscience (and specifically my OCD) perpetuating its own versions of God on me but I continue to remember the lessons learned and go to logic, the wisdom of others and above all else the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Spirit to be my guides and teachers.
Further Notes:
*For a discussion on moral relativity vs an objective Moral Code given by God I would suggest reading “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis. One excerpt on the topic goes like this: “If we ask: ‘Why ought I to be unselfish?’ and you reply ‘Because it is good for society,’ we may then ask, ‘Why should I care what’s good for society except when it happens to pay me personally?’ and then you will have to say, ‘Because you ought to be unselfish’—which simply brings us back to where we started.” C.S. Lewis
*The Bible refers to an overly sensitive conscience as a “weak conscience” (1 Corinthians 8:7 and 1 Corinthians 10) and in Romans chapter 14 Paul discusses the conscience further concluding that: “Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.” (verses 22-23)
*In the Bible, the insensitive conscience is referred to as “seared with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:2)
*We must also remember the spiritual warfare side of this topic. Revelation reveals that the enemy of our souls is called the “Accuser of the brethren”: “…for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.” Revelation 12:10. Satan loves to remind us of our past sins and current failings and to rub them in our face. This type of thing is not of God.
