April 23, 2012                   Brian Lewis, Ballarat, Australia                  Brian's previous articles

CONSCIENCE AS WISDOM OF THE HEART  

It is easy to make morally good moral choices or decisions now and then. Anybody can do  this, even evil-minded persons or people with no moral sense. But to do this consistently and meaningfully, we have to be tuned in to the basic human goods and values that are necessary for living in a community in a loving way. We have to be attracted to these human values and be disposed to make them a reality. This is what is meant in being a morally good or virtuous person, one who by education and training and experience of life has become habituated to respond positively to these values. The permanent dispositions to respond to them, adhere to them and realise them in our moral judgments, are what we mean by moral virtues.  

But something more is needed in addition to these moral virtues. We may have the virtue of generosity, but in a particular situation we may have to decide what particular generous action is called for here and now. For instance, giving alms to a beggar is normally an appropriate response to a needy person, but if we are fairly sure the recipient in this case will use the gift to get drunk or to seduce someone we have to weigh up the pros and cons  of making the donation or at least making this particular kind of donation. Circumstances can change the meaning of things we do, as we well know. So we need to be not only generous but also perceptive. We need to be able to discern what should be done in this specific situation in order to be generous, or just, or patient, or courageous, in other words virtuous in the way called for in the situation.  

We need, then, a moral virtue of discernment , of responsibility, of 'common sense', or what  I like to call wisdom of the heart. This virtue has been called 'the eye of the virtues'. It is the good disposition that directs us rightly in the pursuit of courage, generosity, patience. It enables us to form a right conscience about the way to go in the situation. It ensures that we always seek the truth in our judgments of conscience and that we do not rush into or back off from difficult situations.  It lights up for us the path ahead and pushes us along it through the thickets of reflection and deliberation about the situation and its attendant circumstances, so that finally we see and choose the good and right way of acting. This is the moment of decision of conscience. It is for us the moment of decision.

 Wisdom of the heart is not only a virtue we acquire through repeated efforts as we go through life, a product of our moral experience. It is also a Christian virtue, a quality of spirit given us with the grace of Christ through the indwelling Spirit in our hearts. What Vatican II says about this gift of wisdom has particular relevance here. 'The intellectual nature of the human person is perfected by wisdom and needs to be. For wisdom gently attracts the human mind to a quest and a love for what is true and good. Steeped in wisdom, the human person passes through visible realities to those which are unseen... It is finally through the gift of the Holy Spirit that the person comes by faith to the contemplation and completion of the divine plan' (Gaudium et Spes, n.15). Thus our conscience is empowered to reach the ultimate level of reality: the meaning which faith recognises in Christ, in whom the divine plan is revealed; Christ who is both Word and summons to live in response to the call of God in every situation facing us.  

Wisdom of the heart directs us in forming a right conscience. We cannot be said to have a right conscience when our decision rests merely on the basis that this is 'what everybody else is doing'. Nor is it enough to reason on the common view that such and such a course of action is discriminatory and contrary to human rights without examining all the ramifications of the issue. A right conscience means that we have done our best to be good persons and taken the appropriate steps to inform ourselves about the course of action proposed: the relevant facts, the motivation, the surrounding circumstances, the alternatives. The decision we then reach is subjectively right. This is for us the right thing to do. But this does not mean that what we decide upon is always objectively correct. We may in some cases be objectively mistaken. In the complexity of life we may sometimes have to be content with a considered opinion about the matter without being perfectly sure that we have the objectively correct answer. We have a right conscience when our level of certainty rules out a reasonable fear of being wrong. In the light of our human condition, that is in some cases the most we can hope for.  

The decision of conscience I have outlined is not a deduction from moral principles nor is it merely an application of moral laws. It is not an inference process at all. It is a discernment process leading to the conviction that this is for me the right course to be followed here and now in view of the moral value at stake. And, since it is a decision of conscience, it is binding upon us.  

It sometimes happens that upon further reflection we come to the realisation that our conscience decision is in error. Our obligation then is to correct it as far as we can. If this is out of the question for us, our decision of conscience, whether or not it is objectively in error, lays an obligation upon us first of all not to flout it. Aquinas offers a couple of startling examples to illustrate this point. Not to have extramarital sex, he says, can be mistakenly seen as a bad thing. In this case a person does the wrong thing in refraining from it, because such a person is prepared to choose what is seen as evil. For the same reason it would be morally wrong for someone to believe in Christ when to do so is thought to be a bad thing.  

If, however, our objectively mistaken conscience decision which we are unable to revise carries a positive obligation to follow it, what we do is in practice morally good and meritorious, because it is a loving act proceeding from our wisdom of heart. In the words of Vatican II, 'Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity' (Gaudium et Spes, n.16). It does not lose it because its dignity is not first of all conformity with objective laws, but the dignity proper to the human person, namely to engage freely in a sincere search for the moral truth of his/her situation. Only when this personal dignity is lost does conscience lose its dignity. In the same paragraph the Council adds: 'The same cannot be said of one who cares but little for the search for truth and goodness, or of a conscience whch by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of a habit of sin'.

                                                                                             Brian Lewis, Ballarat, Australia