Forming Your Conscience

one

You always have to follow your conscience

a.  You’ve heard the saying, “Always follow your conscience.” And it’s true.

                                         i.    But remember, following your conscience means doing what, to the best of your knowledge, is the right thing to do.”

b.  But that means that your conscience is dependent on your knowledge

                                         i.    And that means if there’s a defect in your knowledge, there’s going to be a defect in your conscience.

                                       ii.    So your conscience isn’t any more infallible than you are. It can make mistakes about right and wrong, about a good decision and a bad decision.

1.  And a mistaken conscience – which is just a bad moral judgment – will cause harm.

two

A mistaken conscience causes a lot of damage

a.  People can make honest mistakes. Sometimes we do something because we just don’t know any better.

                                         i.    But just because your ignorance wasn’t your fault, doesn’t mean it’s not going to cause any damage.

1.  I may be honestly mistaken about driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

a.  But the fact that it’s an honest mistake won’t prevent me from getting into a car accident and killing the person driving in the opposite direction.

b.  So too, if our conscience is badly formed – in other words, if we are ignorant or innocently mistaken about some moral issue – about what is right and wrong - it might not be our fault, but it’s going to have repercussions that hurt other people and ourselves.

three

Forming your conscience: educating yourself about right and wrong

a.  This means you have to honestly seek the truth.

                                         i.    A good formula to remember is that it’s not enough to follow your conscience; you also have to form your conscience

1.  Another way to say that is that it’s not enough to just do what you feel is right; you also have to be continually praying and thinking and learning about what is right, what is just, what is good.

b.  We spend so much time thinking about our finances, or sports, or politics – how much time do we spend thinking about God’s law? Thinking about what Jesus wants of us? Thinking about how to live rightly?

                                         i.    You can’t just say, “Well, I’ll just do the best I can with the information I have.”

1.  The information you have at your disposal is the fulness of divine truth – are you even bothering to access it? We’re talking about the Scriptures, the teaching of the Church, the examples of the saints.

2.  If you’re not making use of these, then following your conscience is going to be following your feelings about something and that is like following a blind guide – and you will both end up falling into a pit – and serve you right.  

four

Forming your conscience by letting yourself be mentored

a.  One of the best ways to learn something is to apprentice under those who know more than you do.

b.  So too, the best way to form your conscience is to spend time with God, the Source of All Saving Truth

                                         i.    Daily prayer, and daily meditation on the Word of God, is the best way to develop your conscience, to acquire moral insight from the Lord of Light Himself.

c.   Similarly, the lives and writings of the saints give us a glimpse into the minds of those who had well-formed consciences, those who knew how to judge rightly.

d.  Finally, friendship, conversation, and consultation with those whose judgment you respect.

                                         i.    The application of conscience is a skill, a virtue, a kind of an art. Having the humility to learn from others is always the optimal method for growing in excellence yourself.

five

Forming your conscience through continual study

a.  As we said at the beginning, your conscience is only as good as your moral knowledge.

                                         i.    So, since the whole moral life depends on your conscience, you should be continually educating yourself on the principles of right and wrong.

b.  Christ has given us the Church to be our chief moral teacher and guide. It is she who gives us the principles of the Christian life. She is the one who shows us the path to right living.

                                         i.    We can’t be right in practice if we’re wrong in principle. So recommit yourself to continually explore the richness of truth which abides in the Catholic Church.

                                       ii.    The best synthesis of the full teaching of Jesus is right at our finger-tips in the Catechism of the Catholic Church

                                      iii.    We have even gone so far as to give you the Catechism in bite-sized digestible portions each day in the Rosary Podcast

                                     iv.    Without truth, we’re lost. With the truth of the faith, with the practice of prayer, with the example and the advice of holy, prudent people – with these resources our consciences can lead us to the heights of sanctity and happiness.