An Introduction To Moral Theology, 2nd Edition. William May
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is good and to avoid evil” (no. 16). It is in this sense of the term that one’s conscience can be said to be an awareness of the law of God written in the human heart (cf. Rom 2:14-16 and Gaudium et spes, no. 16). At this level, conscience can rightly be called “general moral conscience,” for it is an awareness of moral truth not at the level of particular actions and situations but at the level of general principles. Medieval theologians such as St. Thomas had a special term for designating this level of awareness of moral truth, namely, synderesis or our habitual awareness of the first principles of practical reasoning and of morality.46
Particular moral conscience, or conscience at the level of a practical judgment that one makes about the morality of given acts, is the termination of a process of moral deliberation. General moral conscience, or conscience at the level of one’s awareness of the basic principles of morality, is concerned with the moral truths that serve as the starting points or principles for moral deliberation, principles to which one can appeal in order to show the truth of the particular moral conclusions reached in the judgments terminating the process of moral deliberation.
In Veritatis splendor, Pope John Paul II neatly shows how the practical judgment of conscience is related to what I have here called “general moral conscience” or “our awareness of the basic principles of morality.” Centering his attention on what I have here called “particular moral conscience” or “conscience at the level of a practical judgment” about the morality of given acts, the Holy Father observes that this judgment “applies to a concrete situation the rational conviction that one must love the good and avoid evil. This first principle of practical reason is part of the natural law; indeed it constitutes the very foundation of the natural law inasmuch as it expresses that primordial insight about good and evil, that reflection of God’s creative wisdom which, like an imperishable spark (scintilla animae), shines in the heart of every man. But whereas the natural law discloses the objective and universal demands of the moral good, conscience is the application of the law to a particular case; this application of the law thus becomes an inner dictate for the individual, a summons to do what is a good in this particular situation” (Veritatis splendor, no. 59).
The third level of conscience to which Macquarrie refers is “a special and very fundamental mode of self-awareness — the awareness of ‘how it is with oneself.’ ”47 At this level, conscience is indeed, as the Fathers of Vatican Council II, following Pope Pius XII, put it, “the most secret core and sanctuary of a man, where he is alone with God” (Gaudium et spes, no. 16).48 The character of “conscience” as a special mode of self-awareness is indicated by the etymology of the word. Our English term derives from the Latin conscientia, which means both “consciousness” and “conscience.” As a special mode of self-awareness, conscience has as its basic function the disclosure of ourselves to ourselves as moral beings. As Macquarrie puts it: “Specifically, conscience discloses the gap between our actual selves and that image of ourselves that we have already in virtue of the ‘natural inclination’ toward the fulfillment of man’s end. Thus, conscience is not merely a disclosure; it is also … a call or summons. It is a call to that full humanity of which we already have some idea or image because of the very fact that we are human at all, and that our nature is to exist, to go out beyond where we are at any given moment. Although we commonly think of conscience as commanding us to do certain things, the fundamental command of conscience is to be.”49
At this level, in other words, conscience is a mode of self-awareness whereby we are aware of ourselves as moral beings, summoned to give to ourselves the dignity to which we are called as intelligent and free beings. This is the level of conscience to which Dignitatis humanae referred when it declared that “… all men … are by their own nature impelled, and are morally bound, to seek the truth” about what they are to do (no. 2). It is our realization that we are not yet fully the beings God calls us to be, and that we are capable of becoming by shaping our lives and actions in accord with the truth. It is the summons, deep within our being, to be fully the beings God wills us to be and to make ourselves to be, by our own choices and actions, lovers of the true and the good. At this level, conscience is a dynamic thrust within the person for moral truth.
Because conscience at this level dynamically orients the person to transcend himself or herself by continually progressing to a fullness of being, it is called transcendental conscience by some. This is indeed a valid meaning of conscience. Here, too, as at the level of particular moral conscience and general moral conscience, “conscience” is concerned with our awareness of moral truth, of the truth that we are called to conform our lives and actions to objective standards of morality so that we can be fully the beings we are meant to be.
There are, however, some theologians who develop a theory of “transcendental conscience” that is seriously flawed. The leading representative of these theologians is Walter Conn. He rightly says that “transcendental” conscience is “the dynamic thrust toward self-transcendence at the core of a person’s very subjectivity, revealing itself … as a demand for responsible decision in accord with reasonable judgment.”50 However, he goes on to claim that authentic moral living “is determined neither by absolute principles nor by arbitrary creativity relative to each situation; authentic living, rather, is defined by a normative structure of consciousness which demands that a person respond to the values in each situation with creativity that is at once sensitive, critical, responsible, and loving.”51
Conn is correct, of course, in denying that authentic moral living is determined by “arbitrary creativity relative to each situation.” However, in this passage he denies that there are basic moral criteria or principles in terms of which one can determine whether one’s response is indeed “sensitive,” “critical,” “responsible,” and “loving.” His understanding of transcendental conscience seems to make it completely autonomous and unrelated to the other meanings of conscience that have already been considered. By rejecting the crucial role played by the basic moral principles that are made known to us through the mediation of conscience at the level previously considered, Conn makes “transcendental conscience” more similar to a “funny internal feeling” than to a mode of awareness of moral truth. Unless there are basic moral principles, made known to us through the mediation of conscience, it is difficult to see how the “dynamic thrust toward self-transcendence” could be directed toward those goods that are truly perfective of the human person. In my opinion, it is this “creative” understanding of conscience that John Paul II firmly repudiates in Veritatis splendor. He notes that some authors, emphasizing the “ ‘creative’ character of conscience” (Veritatis splendor, no. 55), have been led to stress “the priority of a certain more concrete existential consideration” beyond “the doctrinal and abstract level.” This concrete existential consideration, according to these authors, “could legitimately be the basis of certain exceptions to the general rule. … A separation, or even an opposition, is thus established in some cases between the teaching of the precept, which is valid in general, and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final decision about what is good and what is evil” (ibid., no. 56).
A person has the obligation to follow his or her conscience — i.e., to act in accordance with his or her own best judgment of what he or she is to do — precisely because this judgment of conscience is the final judgment that a person makes about the moral goodness or badness of the alternatives possible for him or her. If one were willing to act contrary to this judgment, one would be willing to do what one had personally judged one ought not choose to do. One would thus be willing to be an evildoer if one were willing deliberately to act contrary to one’s own best judgment.
There is, indeed, a relationship between the various levels of conscience that have already been considered, and by looking at this relationship we can see clearly why we have the obligation to “follow” our conscience in the sense of acting in accord with the judgment of conscience. We have seen that, at one of its levels, conscience is our awareness of ourselves as moral beings, as persons summoned to act in accordance with the truth and to show ourselves to be lovers of the true and the good and in this way to become fully the beings God wills us to be. But to become what we are meant to be, to become more