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.
