THREE DIMENSIONS OF CONSCIENCE

JOURNAL QUESTION: What is the strongest muscle in your body? Were you just born with this strong muscle or did you have to train it? Explain…

Remember…Timothy O’Connell He describes three different dimensions of conscience: Conscience/1—A Characteristic Conscience/3A Judgment Conscience/2 A Process

Conscience/1—A Characteristic Our basic awareness of right and wrong and our inclination to do good. This is a given characteristic of being human This deals with our natural inclination to know the truth

Examples: “Some, by rejecting conscience, have made a shipwreck of their faith,” (1 Timothy 1:19b) “They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness.” (Romans 2:15) After witnessing someone do something terrible, you may ask, “Don’t you have a conscience?”

Conscience/2—A Process What we do to develop our awareness of the truth. The process of wrestling with/juggling with moral issues that we face This conscience needs to be educated, formed, informed, examined and transformed This dimension is where “formation of conscience” happens

Examples: “I don’t know if I should be doing that; I feel like my conscience is telling me differently.” “I know the right thing to do, but I don’t know if I can do it.” “I don’t know what you should do. You have to decide what’s right or wrong.”

Conscience/3—An Act Making a moral judgment of what is right or wrong Moves us from perception and reasoning to action It is a personal judgment; deciding what I have to do I must always do what I believe to be right and avoid what I believe to be wrong

Examples: “I have to follow my conscience.” “Let your conscience be your guide.”

A good way to think about conscience in these three dimensions is to imagine your conscience is a muscle: THE CONSCIENCE MUSCLE

First of all, God gives us this muscle: Because we’re human, God gives us this special muscle. The understanding that we have this muscle is conscience/1.

Secondly, in order to build up this muscle, we must train it and make it stronger: As we work out the muscle, we are forming it into the best muscle we can. This process of formation is conscience/2.

Third, we must use this muscle to do something real and concrete. After all the training, we must use this muscle to do something. The action that we do with this muscle is the dimension of conscience/3.

In sum… Conscience/1 is a CHARACTERISTIC Conscience/2 is a PROCESS Conscience/3 is a JUDGMENT.