The role of Conscience

We have to always lean on our conscience else we risk condemning ourselves. Even a person who is wrong but honestly believes he is right is bound to listen to his conscience no matter how erroneous he is in reality. He commits a wrong act by doing what his conscience tells him (because he has an erroneous conscience) but suppose he does not listen to his conscience, he becomes a transgressor.


For God judges us according to how much we seek truth. While each one of us is judged according to our understanding of things, one who does not seek what his conscience tries to tell him has already condemned himself, what judgment can he expect from God if he has already damned himself. So while an erroneous conscience makes you sin, we are still bound by the erroneous conscience abandoning which, will make us transgressors.


That was just a small gist on the conscience. The other day my friend made an interesting point. she said, my conscience should have not allowed me to enter the class as I know I am late. I do not believe there exists such a puritan sense of conscience of self-condemnation. If there is, there is an order to it. I can skip an accessory that is freely available to pick, given at an event because I did not attend that event. Here, it would be right to condemn yourself for I do not merit the accessory.


My conscience is operating towards justice. But this can still be mitigated. I could ask to have it even without deserving it and leave it to the event manager to decide. Enjoying the fruit of the award has not against my conscientious judgment of justice. I have asked the event manager to offer me not by the virtue of justice but by the virtue of compassion: as a gift.


In fact there are scenarios on which your conscience should desist you from eligibility to any fruit of life. If you are applying for a teacher’s job but you aren’t a certified teacher (you don’t have to means or knowledge to teach), your conscience is going to voice: why are you applying for the job? (Unless one’s heart is so hardened that one cannot see beyond the personal desire for money)


In such a case, you should refrain from going for the interview rather than leaving it for the interviewer to discern whether to grant you the job. The reason being, one, you are doing injustice to the students who expect a teacher who will teach them. The interviewer’s compassion towards me would be shocking as he is not applying any reason: he is violating the interests of his students by offering a job to someone who does not merit the job.


The role of the conscience is to administer the truth of the matter and urge us to seek it and follow it. For deep down in our beings, we are capable of hearing the voice of the eternal and discerning the law that the eternal has inscribed in our hearts, the moral law. The conscience identifies when I depart from truth and also identifies goodness in things. But the courage to uphold good and condemn evil comes from Human Will. After the fall of Man, Original sin has scarred the human will to choose good over evil. While Man was always made for Good and Man was and is made to love, he inclined to sin due to his tainted nature.


Thus grace that comes from God aids our will tremendously to choose goodness. This does not mean we are led by God’s grace but only encouraged by it. Eventually, it is we who choose the good. But God allows his grace to shine like light over an object that was veiled in darkness (of our ignorance and weakness) and this light paves the way for the dramatic entry of our choice. If I do not choose it, I reject the grace by God. If I know it is of good and yet do not choose it, I reject the grace along with transgressing my conscience.


Another poor example is when only 20 years and above are allowed to play TT. You may skip the tournament instead of asking yourself to be excepted because you are 20 years and a month. Appearing as a candidature may compound the problems of the authorities who may now have to allow everyone because of you. Either they allow everyone over 20 years and whatsoever months, to serve justice or serve only you and become a stumbling block to their principles and force them to ask you to be quiet about it thereby amounting to dishonesty.


In the case arriving late for class, the role of conscience is already done, I have acknowledged I am late; I leave it to the teacher to decide without being hard on myself. I know I do not merit to be allowed but I plead to her mercy, not justice. If I am on time, I would be pleading to justice. None of us condemns ourselves to hell because of guilt, do we? We confess our sins.