Conscience -- By: William Matheson

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 04:2 (May 1942)
Article: Conscience
Author: William Matheson


Conscience

William Matheson

IN THE functioning of man’s spiritual nature his understanding distinguishes between the true and the false and between what he believes to be right and what he believes to be wrong. He weighs the facts in a case and surveys them in their relations and arrives at a judgment of right and wrong on the basis of some accepted rule of right. This is man’s normal experience however faintly his judgment of right and wrong may at times register in the focus of his attention. But having arrived at this judgment another factor enters to endorse the conclusion by a peculiarly mandatory urge of obligation to the right and of deprecation of the wrong. This other factor we call conscience.

That there is such a function in the human constitution underlies the approach of God to man in Scripture and is regularly taken for granted by men in their dealings with one another. Even societies of men, such as national governments, which sometimes make claim of being above obligation to the moral code, find themselves obliged to reckon with it when they seek, as they do, to justify their policies and actions before the world. Shakespeare spoke the language of common human experience when he wrote, “Conscience doth make cowards of us all”. For conscience seems to derive its distinctive characteristic from experience of guilt. There is truth in the proverb, “to excuse oneself is to accuse oneself”, and yet the mightiest powers in the world, ruthless and contemptuous of moral considerations as far as they dare be, at times seek to excuse their actions before the tribunal of men’s consciences. Even they are cowed by conscience into admitted self-accusing by their attempted self-excusing.

In Paul’s Epistle to the Romans the Gentiles are said to “shew the work of the law written in their hearts” because they “do by nature the things contained in the law” so that

they “having not the law, are a law unto themselves” (2:15). Then the apostle adds that their conscience is a corroborating witness. Does this imply that “the work of the law written in their hearts” is a factor in man’s nature or constitution quite distinct from the conscience? We take it that it rather means that conscience is a function that seals the judgment of the understanding regarding conduct, and does so in accordance with “the work of the law written in their hearts”. The prior process of arriving at a judgment gives rise to the self-accusing and self-excusing thoughts within them of which the apostle writes. There does appear, however, to be a distinction made between the witness of conscience and “the work of the law written in their hearts” wh...

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