In counseling many cases, if not all, involve making
right and wrong decisions, discerning good and bad, and judging the moral
appropriateness of thoughts, emotions and behaviors. Conscience is a faculty
that works in service of this dimension according to one’s value framework.
The
Oxford Dictionary defines conscience as "a moral sense of right and wrong
especially as felt by a person and affecting behavior or an inner feeling as to
the goodness or otherwise of one's behavior." Thus, there is the notion
that the conscience both reflects upon and directs an individual’s choices and
behavior. The
traditional Christian view, based on Bible verses like Rom 2:14-15, is that all people know right and
wrong because they have been given the conscience as faculty by God. The
Apostle Paul particularly alludes to it when referring to those who now know
the will of God for governing their lives. Jerome
suggested that the conscience is “a spark of the divine mind” (Kirk, 1927, p. 379) and Calvin
associated it with an awareness of God’s existence, sensus divinitas, within all people (Zachmann, 1993,p. 102). Thus, conscience significantly displays God’s image
in human beings.
Although conscience takes a central role in helping people to live better
lives through counseling and to reconnect with godliness in their hearts,
counselors rarely address this word in the session. Most counselees we see come
to us with significant depression, suicidal thoughts, and a self-degrading attitude.
We may be afraid that bringing up the matters of conscience will escalate their
feelings of guilt. Besides a
feeling of guilt, another emotion which is often associated with the conscience
is shame. While guilt refers to a negative feeling about doing something wrong,
shame refers to a negative feeling about being fundamentally
wrong in one’s self (Tangney & Dearing, 2004, p.25). As both are
moral emotions, they sense some kinds of wrongness accompanied with uneasiness,
anxiety, irritation, anger, and so forth. Counselors tend to deal with more
psychological symptoms and try to ease negative feelings quickly rather than to
work on the conscience. We counselors are professionally trained not to be
judgmental or to make moral verdicts for counselees. Nevertheless, Christian
counselors are called to work at the highest levels possible (Johnson, 2007).
The task should not be how to avoid addressing ethical concerns but how to
skillfully help people enhance their moral awareness. In particular, for Christian
counselors who are working in secular environments, working with people on
their ethical levels can be the best attempt to ignite ‘the spark of the divine
mind’ in themselves.
In a deeper sense, the proper work of conscience should enliven people in
their relationship with God. Bonheoffer explains
shame as a reminder of man’s disunion with God, and conscience is “the sign” of
man’s disunion with himself (1963. p. 24). In the historical redemptive story,
shame and guilt are pervasive emotions in the Fall. In redemption,
the sense of shame can be removed
because the individual becomes a new self in Christ, whereas guilt, as the result
of a proper function of conscience, is sustained in order to make right decisions and to correct wrong ones.
It does not
mean, however, one should be guided by conscience alone. Bonheoffer warns that a conscience can be deceived. In “disunion with God,” the conscience
pretends to be the voice of God and the standard for relation to the self and to other men (1963. p. 25). Hence, man, not God, becomes the origin of good
and evil. However, what
matters is God's judgment (1 Cor. 4:4). Our conscience should not judge us.
In
attempting to explain the issue of conscience, Paul first states that having a
victorious conscience is not enough to acquit him. Conscience helps us
to perceive the law and its violation. Yet we should not rest
not on the conscience alone, but it’s confirmation by the Holy Spirit (Rom.
9:1). Indeed,
in Titus 1:15, Paul remarks that their "minds and consciences are defiled.” He goes further by acknowledging that a conscience influenced by
a false understanding can be oversensitive (1 Cor. 8:7, 10). Thus, even without
mentioning its relation to the biological and psychosocial dimensions and their
proper functions, like any other faculty of soul, understanding conscience is a
very complicated process, and working it out to the fullest capacity as the way
God intended is probably more than just a tough job.
Thankfully,
we find wonderful examples of understanding and working conscience in the
Puritans’ writings. In particular, John Bunyan profoundly captured the
complicated dynamics of conscience discussed above. He warned Christians to be aware of Satan's work of blinding and
numbing their consciences, and “to awaken and rouse up thine heart” through
hearing, reading, and meditating on God's Word (Bunyan, 1980, p. 13).
Simultaneously, however, Bunyan thought that having a burdened conscience was
sinful. In The Pilgrim's Progress,
a person in the Slough of Despond has a
burdened conscience and tries to purge his guilt in a manner that parallels Christian's attempt to rid himself of his burden. He becomes discouraged and then tries to absolve himself
through works of law. John Bunyan's understanding of conscience echoes the pattern that he
learned from Martin Luther's Commentary on Galatians: “The natural conscience is aware of
its impurity before God's law; it tries to exonerate itself by performing good
works but only creates a false god in the process; it becomes tender when it
hears the proclamation of the gospel, and finally it becomes good only when it ceases to listen to its own voice and trusts in the imputed
righteousness of Jesus Christ for salvation” (Bunyan, p.132). For Bunyan,
natural conscience, which is related to the condemnation that follows all
Mosaic Law violations, should be redeemed by Christ's death and blood. The
redeemed conscience is pictured in The Pilgrim’s Progress when Hopeful says, after
conversion, how he felt the threat of God's wrath and thought of how to ease
his anxiety by his own works while his sins only “got faster hold of my
conscience” (p.139-140). He finally felt peace after he realized that salvation
is not by works. From this experience, he began to understand why Temporary –
from the town of Graceless
– quit his pilgrimage: "Though the consciences of such men are awakened,
yet their minds are not changed: therefore when the power of guilt weareth
away, they provoked them to be religious” (p. 152). Hence, from
Bunyan's viewpoint, conscience is not autonomous and must be reflected
on the Cross of Christ.
Making implications from these concepts in counseling sessions can be
challenging. Starting at the ground level, as Christian soul care providers, we
help people keep their natural conscience responsive so that they are keenly
aware of wrong thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in their daily lives. This
work must not be minimized in its significance. Counselors need to ask
counselees frequently about their moral conflicts and explore the function of
individual conscience. However, at the higher level, we need to bring a more
complex view of conscience to our counselees. They should be informed that
simply having a good conscience will not accomplish wholeness. One can be deceived
by her own conscience. Therefore, conscience also needs Christ’s redemption,
and a redeemed conscience will keep oneself from being numb about evil as well
as savoring God’s grace.
References
Bunyan, J. (1980).
Some Gospel-Truth Opened, in the Miscellaneous
Works of John Bunyan. Vol. l. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Tangney,
J & Dearing, R. (2002), Shame and
Guilt. New York, NY: The Gilford Press
Johnson,
E. (2007). Foundation of Soul Care. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press.
Kirk, K.E. (1927). Conscience and Its Problems. Longmans, London:
Green and Co. Ltd
Zachmann, R. C. (1996). The Assurance
of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and
John Calvin. Augsburg Fortress.
UnHye Kwon Ph.D
Maum Counseling and Research,
Bundang, South Korea
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