Conscience in the New Testament

doi:10.1017/9781108883856.003

1 - Conscience in the New Testament

from Part I - Themes in Understandings of Conscience in Christianity

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2021

Wendell Willis

Edited by

Jeffrey B. Hammond and

Helen M. Alvare

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Jeffrey B. Hammond: Affiliation:
Faulkner University
Helen M. Alvare: Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia

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Summary

Wendell Willis excavates from within the New Testament the meanings of what is termed “conscience” in the English language today. Upon surveying all the books of the NT, Willis concludes that suneidesis (the word most-often translated in the NT as conscience) does not have a fixed meaning for NT writers. Willis’s key contribution is to cleave the reader’s understanding of suneidesis into two main categories, while also identifying additional shades of meaning across NT texts. For example, in the Pauline corpus, especially in 1 and 2 Corinthians, suneidesis seems most often to refer to a person’s self-knowledge or internal understandings about himself and his past actions. Here, suneidesis should be understood as “consciousness” rather than “conscience”. In this sense, suneidesis in Corinthians is fundamentally retrospective in nature, while in Romans, suneidesis is more often a guide for the believers’ future moral choices. Other usages of suneidesis in the NT are a variation on the theme first established by Paul: consciousness of past actions or an inner model for one’s future actions.

Keywords

suneidesis consciousness understanding self-knowledge witness introspection awareness

Type: Chapter
Information: Christianity and the Laws of Conscience
An Introduction
, pp. 23 - 38

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108883856.003 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

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References

Recommended Reading

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