Morality: The Conscience

  • The conscience is a practical judgment of reason that helps a person decide the goodness or evilness of actions or attitudes.

    • You must form and inform your conscience.

    • The ability to discover how God wants you to act.

      • Learn God’s standards

      • Pray for strength

  • Catholics inform their conscience through:

    • Scripture

    • Magisterial teachings

  • You must obey your certain conscience

    • Certain: what you truly believe and are sure of what is right.

  • One can have an improperly formed conscience due to:

    • Ignorance

    • True negligence (you were never taught something; ignoring what you were taught; neglect)

  • Conscience is the “most secret core and sanctuary.”

    • It enables you to take responsibility and discern between good and bad.

  • Misconceptions about conscience:

    • Not a majority opinion

    • Not a feeling

    • Not superego

    • Not a “gut instinct”

    • Not “Jiminy Cricket”

    • Not just guilt

  • Forming your conscience is a lifelong task that is done through educating your conscience.

    • We can educate our conscience through:

      • Focusing on Jesus

      • Teachings of the Church

      • Guidance of the Holy Spirit.

      • Gifts of the Spirit

      • Advice of others

  • To make semiautomatic moral decisions, you need to develop virtuous habits.

    • Vices are bad habits

    • Virtues are good habits

  • The two principles to form your conscience to make automatic decisions are:

    • You must always form and inform your conscience

    • You must obey your certain conscience

  • SEER:

    • Study the facts

    • Elect your course of action

    • Execute the action

    • Review your decision

  • Study the facts:

    • Discovery of objective truth

    • Study from appropriate sources

    • Avoid self-interest and prejudice

      • Look toward moral mentors

  • Elect your course of action

    • Choose the right course of action

    • Pray

    • The Holy Spirit will strengthen your spirit

  • Execute the action

    • Put what you have decided into action

    • A true test of a form of conscience

    • the reward for executing a choice based on an informed conscience is incalculable

  • Review your decision

    • Evaluate and reflect on your actions

    • Examination of conscience