MORALITY - How reliable is our conscience

EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY - MORALITY

THE BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?

EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

GOD - MAN
Is Jesus really God?

RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?

SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?

TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.

SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.

FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?

GUIDANCE
How does God guide?

REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.

BORN AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?

SAVING FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven

ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?

TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?

MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.

THE CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the new millennium.

PURPOSE
How can I find a great purpose for living?

IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of God.

SELF-ESTEEM
How can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.

LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.

THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.

Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.

How reliable is conscience

It may be helpful at this point to say a little about the place of conscience in discerning right and wrong. Because God has created us as moral beings who are personally accountable to him, and created us for fellowship with him, he has given us a built-in moral conscience. In Romans, chapter 2, Paul is speaking about those peoples of the world who have never had the privilege of being given God's moral law as the Jewish people had. He says, "Some people naturally obey the Law's commands, even though they don't have the Law. This proves that the conscience is like a law written in the human heart. And it will show whether we are forgiven or condemned, when God has Jesus Christ judge everyone's secret thoughts, just as my message says" (vv. 14-16).

The problem, however, is that we live in a fallen world where we have all been infected by sin, and one of the results is that our conscience gets distorted too. The Bible talks about a "good conscience" (1 Timothy 1:5), and a "clear conscience" (1 Timothy 3:9), but it also talks about a "weak conscience" (1 Corinthians 8:12), a "seared" conscience (1 Timothy 4:2), a "corrupted" conscience (Titus 1:15) and "an evil conscience" (Hebrews 10:22). Our conscience can be desensitised if we fail to listen to it, even to the extent that we become morally blind, stumbling around in moral darkness as John puts it (1 John 2:11). Our conscience is a bit like an alarm clock. We are very good at rationalising our behaviour and we can reset it and make it go off when we want!

Because we do have consciences, however, and because we really are accountable to God, it means that guilt is something very real. Because the whole concept of sin and accountability tends to be rubbished today, all feelings of guilt tend to be written off as psychological problems. We need a psychiatrist, not a minister of the gospel! Now it is certainly possible to have exaggerated or unreal feelings of guilt. But this does not negate the real thing. Christianity not only takes guilt seriously, but it has an answer for it in confession, repentance and the acceptance of forgiveness through the cross of Christ. When we fail morally we can dismiss it, we can deny it, we can distort it, or we can deal with it. If we deny the reality of sin and guilt and our accountability to God, then we have no way of dealing with it. Our mental homes are full of people who would not be there if they knew they were forgiven.

Because our conscience is not sufficient guide in itself to living as God intended we should, if we want to live in a meaningful relationship with him we need some clearer guidelines. God has given us these through the inspired writers of the Bible. As Paul puts it in writing to his younger disciple, Timothy, "Everything in the Scriptures is God's Word. All of it is useful for teaching and helping people and for correcting them and showing them how to live. The Scriptures train God's servants to do all kinds of good deeds" (2 Timothy 3:16, 17). What are these guidelines?