A good conscience

The philosopher Emmanuel Kant was impressed, he said, by two things: the starry sky at night and the moral law within. The stars tell of the greatness of the Creator; the conscience speaks of his holiness.

When the holy Creator made persons in his likeness, he inscribed into the depths of our inner nature a consciousness of right and wrong. This is one of the outcomes of our species being made “in the image of God”. Indeed, our conscience speaks with a quasi-divine authority, warning us of temptations and reproving our faults.

Did you ever stop to think that everyone without exception knows what it is to have a bad conscience? Our conscience tells us, in spite of ourselves, when we’ve done wrong and it makes us feel bad. It is our inner sense of justice. When we sin, it tells us we are guilty.

It is important to know how to deal with this uncomfortable feeling of guilt. The wise Swiss Doctor Paul Tournier penned a book entitled, “True and False Guilt”, showing that false guilt is that which comes from being criticised by people, and we can feel guilty when we have actually not done wrong.

Our conscience judges our actions by the light of our own “inner law”. The voice of conscience is a universal experience, but the “inner law” by which we judge ourselves varies from person to person, and we can either educate it or relax it, consciously or unconsciously.

Although our conscience is not therefore an infallible moral guide, it does make us aware of the wrongness of temptations, and if we listen, it makes us conscious of our sins. Happy the one who has a good clean conscience!

We are endowed with conscience so that we are constantly reminded that we should do good, not evil. The reason that the experience of a bad conscience is universal is that we are all morally imperfect; we all err, make moral mistakes, fall short of our duty. So through our conscience, God is telling us that we are sinners and we need forgiveness.

Forgiveness is one of our heart’s deep needs; without it, people have been led to despair, to suicide, to hopelessness and even to madness. The problem, and the good news, are expressed in the words of Psalm 130.3-4: “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness”. Yes, God is in the business of forgiving sinners!

And when God forgives, he does it well! He wipes the slate completely clean! “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more”, he says (Hebrews 8.12). “Though your sins are like scarlet they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1.18). Nothing else in all the world can work that miracle of real forgiveness; it is God’s own speciality. If you need forgiveness (and who doesn’t?) you must apply to Him.

And getting forgiveness is the gateway into the harmonious relationship with God that we were made for, that gives true human fulfilment. So how do we get it?

I’ll take a few more blog posts to make it clear, as it is so vital and wonderful. But just realise this first: you can’t buy it, you can’t earn it, you don’t deserve it. It is a gift! God gives it because he is a God of grace.

Clive Every-Clayton