Formation and Development of Conscience

Ric A. Cervera
St. Paul University Iloilo

You go to school whose academic standards are high, and which requires excellent grades from students. This situation is further complicated by your demanding parents who expect you to do well. You have pretty good grades during your first 3 years in college. You are now in your senior year, and in one of your major subjects, your professor has been quite unfair. She has planned a difficult test for you and your classmates. You know from past experience that half of the students in the class cheat during exams. You have studied quite hard, but you know that unless you cheat, many others will get higher grades than you. What would you do? List 3 reasons why you should cheat and 3 reasons why you should not to. Then, decide whether you will cheat or not.

It is the proximate norm of personal morality, the ultimate subjective norm for discerning moral good and evil, with the feeling of being bound to follow its directive.

Conscience as Inner Voice

It summons the person to love the good and avoid evil.

It applies objective moral norms to particular acts.

Conscience is formed gradually through the natural educational agents of family upbringing, school training, parish catechesis, and the influence of friends and social contacts.

Christian conscience is formed gradually in faith and through personal and ecclesial prayer-life:
by attending to the Word of God and the teachings of the Church, by responsiveness to the indwelling Holy Spirit, and by critical reflection on our concrete moral choices and experiences of daily life.

Heart factors include reading and prayerful reflection on Jesus teaching and actions, and our own prayer and sacramental life.

Mind factors refer to a deepening in understanding of Sacred Scripture and Church teaching, especially Catholic moral principles, and sound moral guidance.

Our moral responsibility is to develop a properly informed conscience, and to correct any erroneous conscience we may have had.

Conscience monitors the self.

Conscience is dynamic.

Categories of Conscience

1. True Conscience 2. False Conscience 3. Certain Conscience 4. Doubtful Conscience

Categories of Conscience

1. True Conscience - when it deduces correctly from the principle that the act is lawful, or it conforms to what is objectively right.

Categories of Conscience
2. False or erroneous Conscience - when it decides from false principles which considered as true that something which is unlawful. The conscience errs because of false principles or incorrect reasoning. - Erroneous conscience has further classification.

a. Scrupulous Conscience - one that for little or no reason judges an act to be morally evil when it is not, or exaggerates the gravity of sin, or sees sin where it does not exist.

b. Perplexed Conscience - judges wrongly that sin is committed both in the performance or omission of an act. One fears that sin is committed whether it was actually done or not.

c. Lax Conscience - judges on insufficient ground that there is no sin in the act, or that the sin is not grave as it is, or it is insensitive to a moral obligation in a particular area.

d. Pharisaical Conscience - minimizes grave sins but maximizes small ones.

Categories of Conscience

3. Certain Conscience - when without any prudent fear or error, it decides that the act is either lawful or unlawful, or if the person has no doubt about the correctness of his/ her judgment.

Categories of Conscience

Note on Certain Conscience - a conscience can be certain but at the same time erroneous. A certain conscience is not necessarily right; it excludes all fears of error about acting rightly.

Categories of Conscience

4. Doubtful Conscience - when it fails to pass a moral judgment in the character of the act due to a fear or error; or if the person is unsure about the correctness of his judgment.