Discovering God's Voice Flashcards
Wrong Notion of Freedom
Absolute self-directed
Doing what I want
Being responsible for the self
Correct Notion of Freedom
✓ Limited or with boundaries (Should be exercised
in relation to one’s dignity and in relation to other
human beings)
✓ Doing what is good for me and for others
✓ Being accountable for others
- “the inner power which discerns and calls
us to do what is good and avoid evil, according to the law
that God has written in our hearts.
moral conscience by The Catechism for Filipino Catholics
therefore leads us to search the
divine truth and do what is good.
Our moral conscience
This is because it is
believed that “within our conscience is the law of God
and our happiness and dignity depends on following that
law”
moral conscience
In the depths of his conscience, the human person
detects a law which he does not impose on himself, but
which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to
love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can,
when necessary, speak to his heart more specifically: do
this shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by
God. To obey it is the very dignity of the person according
to it he will be judged
Vatican II on Moral Law in the Heart of the Human Person:
is the most secret core and sanctuary of a
person. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in
his depths”.
Conscience
“Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a
person. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in
his depths”.
Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World
“a metaphor for the basic urge we all
feel to achieve inner peace, harmony, psychological
balance”.
law
- Calls such law as “a metaphor for the basic urge we all
feel to achieve inner peace, harmony, psychological
balance”.
Ian Knox,
is more internal than external, spiritual rather
than physical.
The law
- This natural inclination in the heart of every person to
live in perfect peace and harmony with God, with the self,
with others and with the rest of creation is believed to be
designed by God and inherent in each person. It is the
______
natural drive to be complete and to be whole.
Doing something contrary to this natural inclination leads to
destruction, fragmentation, unhappiness, and loss of
direction.
the Greek word for conscience, occurs only
once in the Old Testament text.
- ‘Syneidesis’,
- ‘Syneidesis’, the Greek word for conscience, occurs only
once in the ____ text.
Old Testament
“For wickedness, of its nature cowardly, testifies in its own
condemnation, and because of a distressed conscience,
always magnifies misfortunes”.
Wisdom 17:11:
– the closest word to conscience that has various
biblical perspectives
HEART
another close definition to conscience
reflected on Israelites fidelity to the law and to the
Covenant.
FIDELITY
often became YHWH’s spokespersons for
Israel to faithfully keep its promises to the covenant
- The prophets
served the concrete guideline for Israel in
nurturing her fidelity to YHWH.
- The Decalogue
it became the scaffolds of a healthy covenantal
relationship,
Listening to the prophets
and following the law as specified in the Decalogue,
- The word ‘conscience’ cannot be found in the
gospels.
But in the writings of ____, conscience
occurs several times:
St. Paul and other Apostles
The following themes run through these New Testament references on conscience:
A. It is the fundamental awareness of the difference
between good and evil (2 Cor. 1:12).
B. It is a principle of freedom founded on our obligations
on our neighbor (1 Cor. 10:23,29).
C. Love proceeds from a pure heart and a good
conscience and genuine faith (1 Tim. 1:5).
D. Christ purifies the conscience and not the sacrificial
ritual of the law (Heb. 9:9, 10:2, 10:22).
“True to all peoples regardless of culture, race, belief, and
citizenship”
Conscience as a Universal Concept
➢ He used the term synderesis for the core of conscience
as a “habitus of reason”, as the innate remnant awareness of the absolute good.
❑ St. Thomas Aquinas
He regarded conscience
as God-given reason attempting to make right decisions.
St. Thomas Aquinas
He used “conscience” in relation to the virtue of
prudence to explain why some people appear to be less
morally enlightened than others, their weak will being
incapable of adequately balancing their own needs with
those of others.
St. Thomas Aquinas
➢ His view on conscience is quite spiritual rather than
intellectual, more divine than human.
❑St. Augustine’s View of Conscience:
He said that conscience is the place of the innermost
encounter between God and man, therefore, the voice of
God. It is the divine center of the human person, where
he is addressed by God. In it, he is aware of God and the
soul.
❑St. Augustine’s View of Conscience:
It is the divine center of the human person, where
he is addressed by God. In it, he is aware of God and the
soul.
conscience by st augustine
is the place of the innermost
encounter between God and man, therefore, the voice of
God.
conscience by augustine
He believes that conscience is not to be equated with
feelings. Feelings, for him, are not conscience.
ian knox
“Feelings of contentment and peace, or feelings of guilt,
may accompany the judgement our conscience makes,
but feelings do not determine the morality of the action.
Some people may do the most horrible things and feel no
guilt or remorse while others feel guilt over matters that
have no moral significance at all”.
ian knox on conscience
is more than mere reason, more than mere
will, more than mere feeling it is the depth of human
existence, the innermost core of the person in his
directedness towards God and in his ultimate sustenance
by him
- Conscience
“It is a faculty situated in the very depth and center of the
human person, which accords to man an understanding of
his meaning and destiny, an awareness of the divine
purpose behind the world, a perception of his personal
calling within God’s plan, and an experience of the
imperative character of his calling. Implied in this is the
spiritual and emotional urge to comply with the demands
resulting from the call”.
Karl Peschke believes that conscience is a faculty distinct from
reason, will, and feeling:
is inviolable.
Conscience
_______ is considered as the final arbiter of
what is right and what is wrong, the church believes that
“conscience is ______”.
conscience, primary
declares
that we are bound to follow our conscience faithfully and
“no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his
conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained
from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially
in religious matters.
- Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom
To act against our conscience would mean _______ In short, it means to
commit sin.
not being
true to ourselves and to the person that God wants us to
become. It means being unfaithful to the calling that God
intended us to follow and live.