This is a little random, but in my religion class at school, we're talking about what consciences are, how they are formed, how they work, etc, and I want to know what you think about consciences!
I believe that a person's conscience is really the Holy Spirit inside of him or her. It's the "little voice inside our heads," the words that carry us through the darkest of times. To me, this voice is God's voice, but we hear His voice through the power of the Holy Spirit (I hope that makes sense). All I know is that this is such a hard word to define. I think that all people have consciences...it's just that some people can hear them (and listen to them) better than others. I believe that the more we trust in God, the better we are able to hear/to recognize God's voice within our souls. Also, I think that when people say to follow your "gut feeling," they mean to follow your conscience/the Holy Spirit/God's voice within you.
The Catholic definition (I go to a Catholic school; it's in our religion textbook...) says that "conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral qualitiy of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed."
What do YOU think about conscience? Maybe it's like God's voice inside of us...maybe when we need His guidance, he uses our consciences to "speak" to us, in a way, you know what I mean? I don't know!
Please comment!
-Haley (:
Weird coincidence Haley- the other day some girls were discussing what they believed during a free class at school; 2 of them Athiest, one of them Christian. I went over and sort of plopped down and listened to them, it almost turned into an argument of whos beliefs were right; our God, or science and coincidence. The Christian girl wanted to convince them there was a God by disproving them, but they're 2 of the smartest girls in our grade and any question she asked they would bounce back with a reasonable answer to any person who didn't believe. Soon enough she asked, "Then where does your conscience come from?" They just fired back that it was, "a reflection of what your parents, or life had engrained into your brain as a child. When your parents told you not to do something, and you disobeyed, and they punished or didn't punish you- you learned and your conscience began developing." That was hard for me to think about and I was actually going to post on here today about it because I'm so unsure. I've always heard it was the Holy Spirit inside of us- when we have a gut feel, go with it. So I checked a little in the index of my Bible about consciences and found verses that talked about how the aim of apostolic instruction is love that comes from a pure heart and a good conscience, and about liars consciences being defiled (1 Timothy 1:5 and 4:2). So I really have no idea but I just wanted to share how that story tied in. More feedback would be appreciated!
ReplyDeleteHaley-
ReplyDeleteI've always thought that our conscience is what we feel after we've done something right or wrong based on our judgement. Judgement as in what we thin we should do. Our conscience tells us if we are in sync with our judgement. The problem is that our judgement is not always what God wants us to do. What we think is not always what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, we must study God's word so then our decisions are based off of God so our conscience tells us we did something right. Sorry if this is a little confusing, it just what I think.
Allie
Thank you both for your feedback! (: Evi, that's crazy that we were both thinking of posting the same thing at the same time...haha. But I'm really glad that you shared that story with us. It makes me question everything I had earlier explained about what consciences really are. But I think I'm starting to realize that question and doubt are really the beauty of faith, because those things force us to keep searching and searching for the truth. They force us to persevere and to spend even more time with God to uncover the answers to these questions and doubts.
ReplyDeleteAny more explanations, anyone?! (:
UPDATE: So far, I've learned that consciences are not "gut feelings" because we don't just randomly make decisions when we listen to them. Consciences allow us to make informed decisions rooted in REASON and INTELLECT (our God-given intelligence). Also, I've learned that our consciences are NOT like direct connections to Heaven...yes, God does "talk" to us in a way through our consciences, but our thoughts alone are the foundation of all of our decisions. Think about it - if God whispered everything that we needed to do, then we wouldn't have free will and our decisions wouldn't be our OWN. Got it? (:
ReplyDelete