What Is the Conscience?

I put my faith in Jesus Christ at the age of seventeen. I had no religious family background, nor any Biblical knowledge, and I had only been inside of a church a handful of times. But despite my lack of Christian understanding, shortly after I put my faith in Jesus, I had a strong conviction that I should read the Bible. So, I started reading. I began at the beginning, just like anyone would do with any other book. I read through Genesis and then made my way through the next few books and read the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses details all of the commands that God gave to Israel to bring order to their nation and to make them into a special people for himself. My faith was very new, and I had a strong desire to know more about God and what he wanted me to do. There are many commands that were to be obeyed by the Israelites in the Law, so when I started reading it, I saw an invitation from God to obey him.

I was discovering these things in the Bible around the same time that my mother was preparing our annual Easter brunch. The main dish was going to be pork. Normally that wouldn’t have been a problem, but on this particular Easter, it became an issue.

As I studied the Law of Moses and some of the Major Prophets, I read passages like Leviticus 11:1-8, which says,

And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, These are the living things that you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. Whatever parts the hoof and is cloven-footed and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. Nevertheless, among those that chew the cud or part the hoof, you shall not eat these: the camel, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you… And the pig, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. You shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall not touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.

and Isaiah 62:2-5,

I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in the gardens and making offerings on bricks; who sit in tombs and spend the night in secret places; who eat pig’s flesh, and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels; who say, “keep to yourself, do not come near to me, for I am too holy for you.” These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.

From these verses, I concluded that the Lord did not want me to eat pork. Easter brunch rolled around, and when I shared with my mom that I wouldn’t be able to eat the pork, it caused quite a bit of conflict. What was going on in my head and heart that caused me to feel so strongly about not eating something that I had always eaten?

I’ve wondered about the conscience for all of my Christian life. I’ve always struggled with what it is and how it works, and I haven't received much teaching on it from the churches I've been part of over the last 30 years. It wasn't until I read a book called Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, And Loving Those Who Differ by Andrew David Naselli and J. D. Crowley, that I really began to understand what the conscience is and how it works.

The Conscience Defined

So, what is the conscience? The conscience is God-given, and everybody has one. It is the thing inside you that tells you what is right and what is wrong. Holman’s Bible Dictionary defines the conscience as “that human moral awareness that judges an action right or wrong.” Oxfords English Dictionary defines conscience as “an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior.” Naselli and Crowley say the following about the conscience:

"Conscience functions as a guide, monitor, witness, and judge. Your conscience guides you to help you conform to moral standards, monitors how you conform to them, testifies to how you conform to them, and judges you for how you conform to them, thus making you feel guilt and pain…The conscience is your consciousness of what you believe is right and wrong."

The conscience seems pretty intense. We have something inside of us, given to us by God, that helps us align our actions with what the Creator of the universe desires for us. But what if we don’t believe in God? That doesn't matter. We still have a conscience, and it is constantly accusing us or excusing us (Romans 2:15). The conscience helps us to make good decisions and tries to keep us from making bad ones. If we didn't have a conscience, we would make many more bad decisions. Imagine a world in which no one had a conscience!

To Obey or Disobey

The conscience is not perfect, but we must always obey it! I know, this is a very contradictory statement. How can we obey our conscience if it might be wrong? Good question. Since we are not perfect, our conscience also is not perfect. Our conscience may be misinformed by a number of things – our environment, our culture, our habits, or our beliefs, to name a few. Even if we have a misinformed conscience, we should still obey it. Why? Because if we disobey our conscience, we are disobeying what we think is right and we are deliberately doing what we think is wrong. Naselli and Crowley say,

“...we believe you should generally always follow your conscience. “Generally always”? Yes, that’s the general rule, so that’s what we should emphasize. God didn’t give you a conscience so that you would disregard it or distrust it. Romans 14:22b-23 teaches that a person who lives according to their conscience is “blessed”. So the general principle, especially for Christians who have the Holy Spirit and holy Scripture, is that you listen to and obey your conscience...As a general rule you should assume that your conscience is reliable even if it isn't perfect. And since conscience is usually right, the Bible says that we should do what our conscience says until we are convinced from scripture that it needs adjusting.”

Remember that our conscience tells us what we think is right or wrong. To disobey our conscience is to choose to do the wrong that we believe is wrong, and to decide not to do the right that we believe to be right. To continue to do this is to corrupt our moral identity and lead us to become increasingly evil. On the other hand, when we obey our conscience, we confirm within ourselves that we have made the right decision, we do not feel guilty about our decision, and we have a sense of satisfaction with our choices. This guides us toward moral integrity and increases our strength of character.

When Our Conscience Is Wrong

So, what happens if our conscience is wrong, like mine in my Easter story? What should we do? Can we calibrate or adjust our conscience to be more accurate? Yes, we can.

When I was a kid, I played guitar. The strings of a guitar are constantly going out of tune. They regularly need to be adjusted, otherwise the song that is played on the guitar will sound distorted and unrecognizable. With my guitar, I would use a tuning fork. You would hit the tuning fork against an object, and it made a pre-calibrated sound. You would then tune your guitar to the sound that came from the tuning fork. Calibrating your conscience is similar. There is a tuning fork for your conscience called the Bible. God’s Word is the revealed revelation of God’s will for humanity. It is the fail-safe guide to adjusting your conscience. His Word does not change and is reliable.

The key to calibrating your conscience to God’s Word is correct interpretation of scripture. As I read the Old Testament, I thought that God was telling me not to eat pork, but that was an error. It was a few months later that I realized that the Old Testament command to not eat pork was not written for me, but was part of the Old Covenant. I learned that I live under a New Covenant with God through Jesus Christ by faith in him. This New covenant did not require me to avoid eating pork. I adjusted my conscience and started eating pork again. However, I think it was important that I didn’t eat pork when I thought it was wrong because I was living according to my conscience with the information I had at the time.

Both non-Christians and Christians should always obey their conscience. Christians should additionally calibrate it to God’s Word when an error is realized and non-Christians would be wise to do the same. It’s important though, that we also address three different things that are working against us and our consciences’ proper development.

Working Against Us

The first opponent of a conscience’s growth is our sinful desires. The Bible calls this “the flesh.” Our sinful desires are always at work in us trying to get us to do things that God is displeased with. We should not confuse our conscience with our sinful desires. For example, you might really want a new car that costs $80,000 but you know that you cannot afford it. Sometimes we fool ourselves into believing that doing something foolish like buying a car you can’t afford is a good decision. We might mistake our desire to have something that we want for our conscience telling us that getting it is the “right” thing to do.

The second force working against us is what the Bible calls “the world.” The world is the system or broader culture that opposes God and his mission. The call of the world is to seek approval from other people more than from God. For example, let’s say that there are some unethical and illegal business practices at your job and your boss wants you to participate. You want to speak up, but you don’t because you are afraid of what everyone will say if you call out what is going on. The world often has a very strong influence on our behavior. We must not confuse our conscience with the messages of the world (2 Corinthians 1:12).

The third actor is the devil. The devil and his demons can possess and influence people. Do not confuse the voice of the devil or his demons with your conscience. Some people hear voices in their head telling them to do horrible things, or telling them that they are worthless and should harm themselves or others. The voice of the devil is not your conscience. In Matthew 4:1-11, the devil slightly perverts scripture to try to get Jesus to “obey” God. But using scripture to pervert God’s message is evil. The devil will use any means possible, including trying to trick your conscience into believing something is “right” when it is not.

In addition to the three things above, we should also be careful not to confuse our conscience with our feelings. Our feelings are not our conscience. We can easily confuse our emotions with our conscience because our emotions are usually speaking loudly within us. Sometimes our emotions coupled with our sin nature drown out our conscience. For example, Lilly and Mathew are dating and feel strongly about each other. Lily feels like moving in with Mathew is the next step in their relationship. Lily’s emotions are so strong that it can be hard for her to hear her conscience telling her that this is not a good idea.

What about the Holy Spirit? If you are a believer in Christ, you have God’s Holy Spirit living inside of you. The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth and helps us understand what Christ wants us to do. The Holy Spirit reveals God’s will to us through Scripture (Romans 9:1). Keep in mind that your conscience is also not the Holy Spirit. Sometimes our conscience might give us a strong conviction about something that we should or should not do. We should obey our conscience, but we should not impose our conscience on someone else. We might feel so strongly about something that our conscience is telling us that we might mistake it for the Holy Spirit instead of our conscience. In doing so, we might begin to tell others around us that they should practice the conviction that we have even if they don’t share it. We should not tell others to follow the dictates of our conscience unless the issue is clearly revealed in Scripture. When I stopped eating pork, I began to tell other Christians around me that they should stop eating pork. This caused a lot of confusion for them.

A Guilty Conscience Cleared

One last question we should ask regarding the conscience is this: what should I do if I have a guilty conscience? How do I cleanse a conscience that convicts me of having done wrong? The Bible makes it clear that there is only one way to clear a guilty conscience, and that is by allowing Christ to cleanse it.

If you are not a believer in Christ, you stand guilty before God for your sins against him. You are under God’s wrath and will end up in eternal torment if your sins are not forgiven. God is holy and cannot overlook sin. But God is also loving beyond our ability to understand, and He is full of mercy. God understood our sinful state and provided a way for us to be cleansed of our sin and of a guilty conscience. Jesus Christ was sent by God to live, die, and be resurrected. He is alive right now. He died on your behalf, having never sinned. He is the only qualified person that has ever lived that could take away God’s wrath. Jesus willingly endured God’s wrath in your place when he died a horrible death on a cross.

God offered His precious Son to be a substitute for us and die in our place. And in return, we receive eternal life if we put our faith in him. Hebrews 9:14 says,

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

The only way to have a truly clear conscience is to put your faith in Christ and allow his bloody sacrifice to cleanse your guilty conscience. My hope is that this article will help you begin the process of understanding your conscience, that it will help you to obey God by obeying your conscience, and that it would give you the courage and faith to calibrate your conscience according to God’s Word. May God give you a clear conscience through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Ty Schmitt is a husband and father to three adult sons. Much of his free time is spent studying theology, reading commentaries, and leading a men's sexual purity ministry in his local church.