“What is a conscience?” asked the young man.
“If you see a turtle upside down with its legs trying to get right side up, what’s your instinct?” replied the old man.”
“I guess it’s to turn him over.”
“Well, that’s conscience.”
The term “conscience” comes from con, which means with and science, meaning knowledge. So, conscience means “with knowledge.” The conscience-less may have heard how their behavior may be wrong, but they simply don’t care enough to change, because not caring serves their interests more.
The Bible refers to “conscience” thirty-four times. There’s the clear conscience, the good conscience, the dirty conscience, the calloused conscience, the weak conscience, and of course, the guilty conscience.
Though not specifically mentioned, it alludes to those who seem to have no conscience at all. I can’t prove it theologically, but have you noticed that there are a lot of people who appear to be bereft of that typically congenital impulse?
We now have psychological profiles of such people. You have your malignant narcissists, egoists, bullies, and sociopaths. These are people who may well become genocidal maniacs, human traffickers, serial rapists, despots, and dictators.
Is it nature or is it nurture? Could it be a malformed or damaged frontal lobe of the brain? I certainly don’t have the answers to these questions. C.S. Lewis wrote: “The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you.” If that’s true, the opposite is also true that the more we disobey our conscience, the less it will demand of us and shrink to become more and more of an appendage. This may be why some people routinely display heinous behaviors with total impunity.
C.S. Lewis also said that “conscience is nothing more than the voice of God within our souls; the bridge that links the creature to the creator.” With a tepid or entirely absent conscience then, the person who drowns out God’s voice and hears only his own, or the voices he prefers, dynamites that bridge. The prophet asks and answers is own question: “Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.” (Jeremiah 8:12)
I’m pretty sure it’s not good when people like that are put in charge of others. Just sayin’.
barney wiget 