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3 - Conscience in Early Christian Thought

from Part I - Themes in Understandings of Conscience in Christianity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2021

By
John Anthony McGuckin
Edited by
Jeffrey B. Hammond  and
Helen M. Alvare
Jeffrey B. Hammond
Affiliation:
Faulkner University
Helen M. Alvare
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia
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Summary

John McGuckin examines early writings of Christian theologians about conscience. These relied upon the Scriptures and upon Plato, Aristotle, and others, and they regularly grappled with the positive and negative possibilities of conscience. But Christian writers made religious inquiries. St. Paul wrote about conscience in connection with a law “written on the heart,” a guide to everyone, but fallible and in need of the grace of Christ. The Greek fathers, led by Origen, emphasized conscience as an awareness of divine things, albeit impaired by man’s fall, yet still oriented to God and to obedience to moral norms. The Latin fathers, led by Augustine, emphasized humanity’s corruption after the fall and need for divine grace. Thus, conscience may convict, but might not provoke a person to goodness. Only loving God could do this. In both Latin and Greek thought, therefore, conscience was more than an inner voice instructing about right and wrong. It was a set of reflections on the spiritual identity of human beings.

Keywords

Greek Fathers of the Churchinfallibility of conscienceLatin Fathers of the Churchsyneidesisconscientia
Type
Chapter
Information
Christianity and the Laws of Conscience
An Introduction
 , pp. 57 - 70
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Recommended Reading

Hausherr, I. Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East. Cistercian Studies Series 53. Kalamazoo, mi: Cistercian Publications, 1982.Google Scholar
Lampe, Geoffrey W. H. A Patristic Greek Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Maurer, Christian. ‘Synoida-Syneidesis’. In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 7. Edited by Friedrich, Gernard. Translated and edited by Bromiley, Geoffrey W., 898–919. Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 1971.Google Scholar
McGuckin, John A. ‘Exegesis and Metaphysics in Origen’s Biblical Philosophy’. In Seeing the Glory, Collected Studies of John A. McGuckin, vol. 2, 159–74. Yonkers, ny: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2017.Google Scholar
McGuckin, John A. The Westminster Handbook to Origen. Louisville, ky: Westminster John Knox, 2004.Google Scholar
Pierce, C.A. Conscience in the New Testament. Studies in Biblical Theology 15. London: SCM Press, 1955.Google Scholar
Torre, Chiara. ‘Seneca and the Christian Tradition’. In The Cambridge Companion to Seneca, edited by Bartsch, Shadi and Schiesaro, Alessandro, 266–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.Google Scholar

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