Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: arm@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Alexander d Macalalad) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: One of the best kept secrets in the Catholic Church Message-ID: Date: 7 Oct 90 01:15:08 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University Lines: 31 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [Will Bralick had refered to a conscience as being "properly formed". Such a conscience will not have any conflict with the (Roman Catholic) Church. Mark Sandrock objects that we don't form our conscience, but follow it. He sees the conscience as intuitive perception, whic should not be bound to anyone else's teachings. --clh] Well, I guess that we've heard both extremes. The danger with Mark's position is that there is the danger to reject church and rely solely on individual conscience. Taken to its logical conclusion, one can reject even the Bible in favor of conscience. This is certainly not the intention of the Roman Catholic position. Let me suggest some middle ground. Our conscience is in some sense our perception of God and His will for us. But it is often difficult for most of us to even hear our conscience, let alone listen to it, since it is drowned out by our own sin and our own agenda for satisfying our needs. Fortunately, God reveals Himself to us not only through our conscience, but through Jesus Christ, through the Bible, and through the Church. It is through these sources of revelation where we learn God's voice, and we learn how to listen to His voice in our hearts, in our conscience. This is what the Church means for us to inform our conscience. If we have an informed conscience, and we hear something which goes against the teachings of the Church or of the Bible, and if after consulting others in the Church and praying to God for guidance, we still hear that same something, then we are obliged to follow our conscience, because no one can judge what goes on when a person stands alone before God but God Himself. Alex Macalalad