Well, there can be no replacement for truth. Of course charity and living by conscience is of high significance, but without being properly informed this may not be enough. If I have the wrong ideas about a given theology, I may believe that homosexuality is ok and be acting within my conscience and charitably but actually harming myself and others.
Dear searching east �
May I offer a better understanding of conscience. You have touched a subject close to my heart. I have spent a lot of time trying to understand my own conscience. I offer my opinon and what I think. Take what you think may be good.
(here I go - step into the breach once more!)
My posts are often confusing and boring and odd. Feel free to skip over it.
Also .. when I write "you" do not take it personally as I am speaking in general - everyone including me.
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Conscience (from the Latin) means {together-knowledge}. Knowing something together. God and you - sharing the same knowledge. God does not need your conscience to know about you. You need your conscience to know about God. It is where God holds conversation with you.
The knowledge that God has is not the results of his reasoning nor analytics. It is experiential knowledge. It is immediate and an intimate understanding. Existential and ontological reality.
Knowledge gained by reasoning or by analytics is not the same knowledge as experiential knowledge. The two can not be joined nor shared. They can not be - together and the same. The type of knowledge that can be con-science must be the same type of knowledge.
In the Temple design there is the outer court (representing our sensate nature - this was called the Court of the Gentiles). Next was the inner court in which Jews could go but Gentiles could not go I believe the name of this was the Court of Israel. In the second court is where the sacrifices took place. Gentiles could not enter the Court of Israel. This court represents our spiritual nature (our psychological mind). And the last court was the Holy of Holiness where only the High Priest may enter and only on the day of Atonement. This court is where one was face to face with God�s presence.
The Holy of Holies represents � our conscience a function of what philosophers call - person.
The division is like this �
Person
Psychological mind (created spirit or psyche)
Sense of body (created animal nature or soma)
Pretty neat if you ask me � how the construction of the Temple reflected our own divisions of human nature.
In the Mosaic arrangement: the Holy of Holies was where God spoke from � to his people.
All kings (at the time) sat on a throne and inside a hollow in the throne was the covenant between the king (and his gods) � and the people. The word Ark means �container�. The throne was the �container� of the covenant. The throne of the King of Israel contained the tables (the Law and a few other items). The tables (The Law and the covenant) was called �the Word� because it was considers as having been spoken by God � to the people (the governed).
The Law was written on tables by the finger of God. On top of the Ark (the seat where a human king would sit) cradled in the wings of the cherubim (those who hold the flaming sword which guards the path to back to Eden) was the invisible presence of God. Called the Shekinah Light (light here means knowledge). The same which went before them (it lead and they followed) out of Egypt.
Notice the symbolism. The spiritual meaning. Look at the literal meaning but raise to the spiritual meaning.
With the messiah (Jesus) the symolism begins to drop away � �In those days I will write with my finger in their hearts�. The �heart� of a man was his conscience (in our terms).
(I am assuming you are a bit familiar with these scriptural quotes)
That which was of a created nature (the physical Holy of Holies, the physical tablets of the Law written by the finger of God) are now replaced with what they had represented - conscience.
On the other hand � we humans have (create for ourselves) a set of mental (psychological) rules and laws by which we try to live by. We are near constantly adjusting these rules. Fine tuning them. (Example: Ray says something stupid and someone complains and Ray says mentally �Well .. I have to remember not to say that again!�). These rules are like a set if formula by which we expect certain results. If we do not get the expected results - we adjust the formula.
We use our reason to adjust these mental sets of rules � which we often call �conscience� but is not conscience. We all have this function and a form of this function is necessary for us to function at all. I say mental sets (plural) because we hold many of them and they are conflicting. And so we are also trying to find the belief that will tie them all together (unify and integrate them). They are that which � �My name is Legion� � for there are 100 of us � the number of a Roman Legion .. Simply representing �a great number� and not specifically and exactly 100.
We experience these as different personalities which live in our psychological mind. We are one person (one way) with our employer (perhaps submissive and hold back our real thoughts) and we are another personality with someone else. I am totally honest with my wife and with my employer I play the necessary politics. I am one personality around a group of Republicans and I am another personality around a group of Democrats. We are another person with our priest (kind and do not swear - smiling and all is well) and we are a different person with our close friends (the job is horrible and life sucks) - etc.. etc.. � we are Legion. We
are the man of the Gadarenes. (Thank you Arch Bishop Sheen).
Our problem is (and this is where we mistake this mental set of rules for our conscience) � we are always adjusting the rule set and trying to find just the right formula - in fact we tweak it everyday. We are trying to get it right - the right formula. The right mix of ingredients. During Medieval Europe this was called Alchemy and the search for the �Philosophers Stone � (which would turn lead into gold) and sometimes it was called untying the �Gordian Knot� (unwinding chaos to find truth).
In any event � the psychological set of rules is located in our created spiritual nature (our psychological mind). It is a creation of our reasoning. It is often called �moral conscience� but that is a mis-application of the word according to its real definition. This set of rules is mostly a social set of �laws� for how we are to socially interact (just as the Mosaic laws were social law). That social interaction can be with other people or with our concept of God. So it can be said that �our conscience must be well informed� and that is can be in error or can misjudge.
We often in-form this set of rules along the lines of our religion. We create or re-create for ourselves an image of God (formed by a specific set of rules). We call this ethics and morals. This function is necessary for us humans to function socially. The tools we use to form any mind set of rules is our reason. WE reason our way to truth or we have faith in some set of rules. This �conscience� assumes (and can only function) in a world that is considered as mechanical, fixed, and pre-determined. We place these rules as our master (our god or gods) and we are the servant (they guide or command us what to do and how to act). Our gods may be economics, politics, religion, music, any number of human activities of senses or mind.
This set of psychological rules (conscious and subconscious) are modeled upon conscience and its function - but these rules sets are not inn themselves - conscience.
They are a necessary (what do I want to say??) refection of our conscience - but within the psychological mind. But neither moral conscience nor social conscience fit the definition of con-science. I, myself, would not call this �wrong� and a huge mistake � but I would rather say these names (moral and social conscience) are nearly right for practical purposes. But for someone really trying to understand conscience and its importance we should really be more precise.
Conscience (however) is not the same as this psychological set of rules. Conscience can never be wrong. As conscience {con-together} + {science-knowledgenowing} � � God can not have false knowledge (let us get away from the words �right and wrong� which have to do with the set of psychological rules I was talking about). If something we know is misguided, unreality, and false - God can know
about it but he does not know it in a direct and experiential way (which is the way God knows things). He knows about false unreality in us - as a lack of himself � in us.
God does not share any un-reality we may have in our mind. God does not know or share any misguided or false knowledge. God only knows what is real. Existentially real. Ontologically real. Which type of knowledge is really an intimate experience of himself.
Therefore: The only knowledge that you and God can share together - has to be the knowledge that God knows. Con-science. What God knows - you know. This knowledge is what Jesus had called � �The will of my father.� The will of God. Its seat of human experience is in what theology calls �essential union� and that seat is the same as conscience.
If that knowledge (conscience) can be false, un-real, off base, mistaken, ill-informed � than God does not know it and it is not - a knowledge you and He can share. It is not con-science.
Do you see?
God only - can in-form our conscience. We can not in--form our own conscience. Once we do that (in-form it ourselves) it is no longer con-science. We say we can � but what we are referring to when we say we can � is our psychological set of rules (moral or social). We are mistaking the set of psychological rules - for real conscience.
The problem we have is � we take our gaze off of conscience. We place our in-forming gaze at our sensations or at our physiological mind (especial at the set of rules we substitute for conscience).
The nature at which we place our in-forming gaze � is the nature which � in-forms our personality. Our personality can be in-formed by conscience (by God) � or by the created natures of psychological mind or senses. We have the liberty to choose the direction of our in-forming gaze � only constrained by habit (subconscious and automatic tendency) and other considerations of human nature which it is no value to mention now.
There is absolutely no way we are capable of analyzing our conscience. We can examine (with the tool of reason) our set of mental rules � but true conscience is a higher function (its seat is in what philosophy calls �the person�) than the faculty of reason which has it seat in the powers of the physiological mind.
Our �person� � the foundation of our be-ing � is not an object � it is an action - an act. More like mind is an act and not an object. But person is the source and origin of the act of psychological mind. A faculty can not be turned and used upon its origin. Reason and analytics can not be used upon conscience. Conscience and only be known in an experiential way � else � what we are reasoning on is not conscience.
I am really sorry. I can not say things simply. I know I can be very confusing to people. There is not much I can do about it. Believe me - I do not talk much at parties.
The Bottom line �. Conscience has its seat in �person� (philosophical definition) and as such can not be in-formed by our own efforts in any way, shape, or form. We can pay attention to it � or ignore it � or create a psychological based substitute for it � and we can call (and often do call) that set of rules - God - and call it right or wrong (as compared to what we think is fixed truth and reality which we think we can analyze).
Conscience � if we pay attention to it and sit with the existential experience of it (and remove all mental obstacles which block a pristine experience of it) � can never be �wrong� or ill-formed or misguiding - in any way. And can not be the converse either �right. And paying attention to it can become a habit carried over to more active life.
Reason takes its proper place when it is a tool of charity. Directed and guided by charity. A friendship type of love. Because charity arises from one place only - conscience. Charity can not arise, act, or be gotten and lived from any other source.
May peace of conscience be with us all.
-ray