Informing the Conscience

Most airplanes have a radar system built into them. This radar system warns the pilot of danger. He could be flying too low or there could be another plane within range, but whatever the danger he relies upon the radar system to warn him. As humans, we have two types of radar systems, so to speak, built into us. One is for our body and the other for our spirit.

The radar system for our body is called pain. Pain warns us that something is not right. For a young child, it serves as a great teacher. As parents we can warn them again and again, but they only have to touch a hot stove or a burning match one time and pain will teach them a lesson they won't soon forget. Now most people consider pain a bad thing, but it's really not. In fact, it's a wonderful gift from God. Just think for a moment what a life without pain would be like - not knowing when something is too hot, not knowing when something hurts. The results would be disastrous.

Just as pain functions as a warning system for our body, the conscience performs the same function for our our inner man. How does it work? First of all, it has an innate ability to sense between what is right and what is wrong. The conscience urges you to do what you believe is right and restrains you from doing what you believe is wrong. When you violate your conscience, it condemns you and triggers feelings of shame, regret and anxiety. Conversely, when you follow your conscience, it commends you and brings self-respect, well-being and gladness. Conscience is at the heart of what distinguishes a human being from other creatures. People, unlike animals, can contemplate their own actions and make moral self-evaluations. That is the very function of conscience.

But don't equate the conscience with the voice of God or the law of God. Everyone has a conscience, both Christians and non-believers. It is a human faculty that judges your actions and thoughts by the light of the highest standard you perceive. And herein lies the problem. Because it is only a human faculty it is not perfect. Teaching, tradition and truth all inform the conscience, so the standards it holds you to are not necessarily biblical ones. For example, since teaching informs the conscience, false or wrong teaching can "program" the conscience incorrectly and give the person invalid information regarding right and wrong. Other things that can cripple the conscience are human wisdom and wrong moral influences.

The Scriptures tell us clearly that the conscience can become defiled so that it can no longer distinguish between pure and impure.

To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. - Titus 1:15

The Apostle Paul tells us that the conscience can be cauterized - seared with a hot iron.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. - 1 Timothy 4:2

Once a conscience is no longer working correctly so that it cannot tell right from wrong - or has been seared so that it is not working at all - at that point we are like an airplane flying in the dark with no radar and no instruments. We are flying blind.

As Christians, it is important to keep our conscience in good working order. Since it reacts to the convictions and beliefs of our mind, it can be sharpened so that it works in accordance with truth. We need to fill up our mind and our hearts with God's Word so that our conscience can be correctly informed and able to judge rightly.