So what is the reliability of this moral faculty called conscience? While Joseph Butler saw conscience as a universal moral faculty, ‘the final decision-maker’: ‘There is a principle of reflection in men by which they distinguish between approval and disapproval of their own actions… this principle in man… is conscience’ and that humans are influenced by two basic principles; self-love and benevolence. He believed conscience determines and judges the rightness and wrongness of actions without introspection; ‘had it strength as it has right; had it power as it had manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world.’ He said conscience is ‘our natural guide, the guide assigned us by the Author of our nature’. In contrast, St Paul describes conscience in the New Testament as an awareness of what is good and bad, and observes that it can be weak and mistaken (1 Corinthians 8:10-12; perhaps merely indicating a ‘moral point of view’ by which we struggle to make rational judgements about moral issues. St Paul believed that conscience was within the centre of the soul: ‘They can demonstrate the effects of the law engraved on their hearts, to which their own conscience bears witness.’ (Romans 2:15). He strove and sought to find real conscience: ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.’
Like everyone else ultimately a Christian must make a personal decision about a personal, local or global moral issue. They will be guided by the teachings of Jesus, by their understanding of the Bible, and by the teachings of their church; but they must make up their own mind. Conscience has been defined as “an inner sense that knows the difference between right and wrong”. Christians believe that this inner voice is the voice of God speaking to them, often as the result of prayer. They believe that as human beings are far from perfect they cannot act without God’s help or grace. Many Christians believe the voice of God is the most powerful force in nature, indeed the only force in nature, for all energy is here only because the power-filled Word is being spoken. The Bible is the written word of God, and because it is written it is confined and limited by the necessities of ink and paper and leather. The voice of God, however, is alive and free as the sovereign God is free. There are various examples in the Bible in which the conscience is most apparent. Adam and Eve, for example, having tasted the forbidden fruit, felt ashamed and hid with the intention of concealing themselves from God (Genesis 3:7-10). Some conscience became so unbearable it led to cutting short of ones life, for example, the traitor Judas, who hung himself after he had betrayed Jesus Christ to the chief priests of the Jews (Matt 27:5).
To many people, conscience is almost all that they have by way of knowledge of God. This still small voice which makes them feel guilty and unhappy before, during or after wrong-doing is God speaking to them. It is this which, to some extent at least, controls their conduct. No serious believer of authentic religion would deny the function of conscience, or deny that its voice may give some inkling of the moral order that lies behind the obvious world in which we live. Yet to make conscience into God is a highly dangerous thing to do. Firstly, conscience is by no means an infallible guide and secondly, it is unlikely that we shall be moved to worship, love and serve a nagging inner voice that at worst spoils our pleasure and at best keeps us rather negatively on the path of virtue. Conscience can be so easily distorted or morbidly developed in the sensitive person, and so easily ignored and silenced by the insensitive, that it makes a very unsatisfactory God. For while it is probably true that every normal person has an ‘embryo moral sense’ by which he can differentiate right from wrong, the development, non-development or perversion of that sense is largely a question of upbringing, education and propaganda.
An example of upbringing is if an adult was brought up as child by extremely strict vegetarian parents, now older, attempts to eat meat he will in all probability suffer an extremely bad attack of “conscience.” If he is brought up to regard certain legitimate pleasures as “worldly” and reprehensible he will similarly suffer pangs of conscience if he seeks the forbidden springs of recreation. The voice may sound like the voice of God, but it is only the voice of the early upbringing which has conditioned his moral sense. An example of propaganda is the way in which public propaganda influenced those of sensitive conscience during the last World War. It was perfectly possible for an extreme sense of guilt to be aroused if paper were burned (because propaganda had said that it should be saved), or if a journey by rail were undertaken (did not propaganda shout on every hand, "Is your journey really necessary?").
In Nazi Germany, of course, propaganda as a weapon to lead astray the moral sense became a fine art. It soon seemed, for example, a positive duty to hate Jews, and a good Nazi would beyond a shadow of a doubt have suffered pangs of conscience if he had been kind to one of the loathed race.
Our conscience can be thought of not as the voice of God, but the gift of God, because God’s ‘voice’ or truth is eternal and changeless. However, our conscience changes throughout history. For example, in 1748, at the age of 16, George Washington wrote, “Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.” Throughout his life he worked hard to follow the urgings of the “Divine Spark flickering in his breast.” Yet, when he started farming at age 22, he did so with the assistance of 36 slaves. Over the years, the number of slaves grew, until at his death in 1799, his estate had 316 slaves. So, despite his wish to live a moral life, he suffered no pangs of conscience regarding slavery. But today we know better; we know slavery is grossly immoral.
Our sense of right and wrong is inculcated. It is taught to us by society, and it becomes part of our belief system. Although society shapes us, we also shape society. Some of the more free-thinking among us question things. They rebel and reform society, so future generations are brought up with consciences more accustomed to the Will of God. Conscience, then, is not the voice of God but His gift. It is a mechanism that evaluates the worthiness of our desires, urges, and actions. It is a moral compass that points to goodness and excellence, as it is understood at that time. It is dangerous to believe our conscience is the Voice of God, for when we do so; we use an unenlightened or tainted conscience to justify, slavery, genocide, war, and other atrocities.
To conclude, I do not firmly believe that conscience is the voice of God.
Mainly because of the difficulties which arise with conflicting consciences. There are a number of religions with competing claims about truth, making people sincerely believe different things on a wide variety of ethical and religious issues. Also, atheists say that conscience is very important to them and if they do not believe in God then how can conscience be the voice of God? Surely if conscience was the voice of God then atheists would find it hard to have conscience in their lives.