THE ARGUMENT FOR GOD FROM THE CONSCIENCE AND THE NEED TO BE TRUE TO OURSELVES, Chapter 13

For many, the moral argument for the existence of God doesn’t work. They simply deny the existence of objective moral laws and are willing to accept that there is nothing objectively wrong about rape, even genocide, and are willing to live with the consequences of moral relativism. However, many of these same people will, nevertheless, claim that we have to live according to the dictates of our conscience. This “Argument for God from the Conscience” might, therefore, speak to them.

In the “Handbook of Christian Apologetics,” Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli (K/T) observe:

·       Isn’t it remarkable that no one, even the most consistent subjectivist, believes that it is ever good for anyone to deliberately and knowingly disobey his or her own conscience? Even if different people’s consciences tell them to do or avoid totally different things, there remains one moral absolute for everyone: never disobey your own conscience.

Remarkably, they regard their conscience as an absolute authority, but what would grant it this authority that we should obey it? K/T list four possible sources for the authority of conscience and then show the problems with the first three:

1.    From something less than me (nature)

2.    From me (individual)

3.    From others equal to me (society)

4.    From something above me (God)

They show that the first three fail to provide a basis to absolutize our conscience:

1.    From something less than me (nature) K/T write:

·       How can I be absolutely obligated by something less than me..?

Certainly, a TV show or the song that my neighbor is singing cannot obligate me, even less, a message that flashes on my computer screen. How then can an impersonal and accidental thing like nature have authority over me? Certainly, even the rain, wind, and the cows should not be able to run my life. Instead, there has to be a greater authority.

2.    From me (individual) K/T again write:

·       How can I obligate myself absolutely? Am I absolute? Do I have the right to demand absolute obedience from anyone, even myself? And if I am the one who locked myself in this prison of obligation, I can also let myself out.

Clearly, there is no reason for my conscience, words, or decisions to be absolute. If I make my decisions, I can also break them. What is supposed to bind me to them? Nothing! Besides, we also observe that we have often been wrong.

If our conscience is merely a mindless set of bio-chemical reactions, it cannot serve as our absolute authority. Instead, the conscience has to be a message from a greater Source, as our TV brings us messages that originate from beyond itself.

3.    From others equal to me (society) K/T write:

·       How can society obligate me? What right do my equals have to impose their values on me? Does quantity [the majority] make quality?

We might decide to follow a given law, but not because it possesses absolute authority. Instead, we recognize that our laws are evolving and can be challenged. If they were absolute, they could not be challenged or amended. If we could challenge them, this would suggest that we are doing so from a more authoritative, superior, or absolute basis.

These first three possibilities for our belief that our conscience is absolute and should never be violated fail. There remains only one other rationale – that our immutable and all-wise God provides that foundation. Only He can provide the rationale to regard our conscience as absolute.

It is ironic that the very Being we seek to avoid pops up despite all of our efforts to hide from Him. Of course, when we see that we, once again, are looking into the face of God, we will often de-absolutize our conscience in order to escape Him. However, this is His world, His values, and His workmanship. To escape Him is to escape life itself.

Besides, when we reject Him, we also reject ourselves, who are created in His likeness. How? To reject His fatherhood and authority, is also to reject the authority of our conscience. This is because God is the only adequate foundation for the authority of the conscience. In this way, we reduce ourselves to mere sophisticated animals and reject the fact that we are morally responsible. To add to this degradation of our humanity, many deny freewill and objective morality. Without an objective and authoritative law-Giver, there is no rational basis for objective morality and even an objective meaning for our lives. Instead, we are reduced to animalistic instinct and the pursuit of mindless pleasures. As a result, we often hear the misguided advice, “You have to find what feels right for yourself.” This is no less that the denial of any authoritative truths.

Without an authoritative God, there exists no possible rational foundation for an authoritative conscience. The negative repercussions are numerous. Psychologist James Hillman had written about one:

·       We dull our lives by the way we conceive then…By accepting the idea that I am the effect of…hereditary and social forces, I reduce myself to a result. The more my life is accounted for by what already occurred in my chromosomes, by what my parents did or didn’t do, and by my early years now long past, the more my biography is the story of a victim. I am living a plot written by my genetic code, ancestral heredity, traumatic occasions, parental unconsciousness, societal accidents. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/80069/the-souls-code-by-james-hillman/9780399180149/excerpt

Instead, when we fail to embrace God, the One who has given us food, drink, family, identity, and life, we fail to embrace ourselves and our inherent dignity. What we had once regarded inviolable – our conscience – we degrade to the status of a loud and troubling organ. We have doomed ourselves to a life of endless wandering, looking for our place, which we have already rejected.