C.R. Spicer
December 12, 2012
Dr. Andrea Vicini
Fundamental Moral Theology
Boston College
The Historical
Event Concretizes Conscience
“No one could have predicted that the match
struck by Mohammed Bouazizi to set himself afire in Sidi Bouzid on December 17,
2010, would ignite the entire Arab world, but, the kindling had been laid and was there for all to see years before…
(Kenneth Pollack 2011, 3).
What are the
implications of this understanding of conscience when we reflect on a concrete
historical event (e.g. the Arab Spring)?
Contentions
among differing notions of moral truth, reason and the nature of the self,
under the light of this investigation, appear to resolve in definitions such
as, conscience is “simply a dimension of the self” (Patrick 1996, 35). What may
be missing is a fuller account of the way a historical event is
self-constituting and the way that reason, the public reason through which we
know ourselves, requires us to act truthfully in answer to questions about
injustice. With Linda Hogan we argue that “in everyday choices the person
concretizes her/his fundamental option” (Hogan 2001, 131). In short, the
understanding of conscience is the activity of rectifying injustice, or we
should like to remain alone before God, apophatic in spiritual life, taking the
via negativa. Indeed, Iris Murdoch
has called virtuous the search for our ‘unself’ (Murdoch 1970, 93). What we
value as more unselfish is a self-in-relation. Within the world we stand
“within” our conscience when we know our self-in-being-crucified. Historical
events can sometimes fix us: “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther; here
shall your proud waves be stayed” (Job 38.11).
By
uncovering these contentions we invite moral theologians to de-mystify the
conscience and explore the cataphatic implications of biblical, feminist and
political perspectives. Thus, we defend the position that conscience is
embodied sacred truth, that is irreducible to a politicized concept. It is
sacred truth in the sense that conscience is divinely generated capacity that
one has to receive sorrow in response especially to human brokenness. It is
embodied in the sense that deeds matter and that the doer cannot escape from accountability
not only before God but before neighbor. Giving emphasis on the embodiment of
conscience recognizes the tension of faith that a socially conducted moral
force within the human community is nevertheless indicative of God’s indwelling
presence.
1.
Elements
of Conscience: Moral Truth, Reason, Self
Which is moral truth—The plain and simple truth, the
difficult truth, the honest truth—the descriptive or prescriptive, the
subjective or objective—? Brian V. Johnstone notes that divergent notions or
models of moral truth coincide within tradition. He is a proponent of a
theology of tradition as ‘living tradition’, one that includes a plurality of
positions in conflict but which must be in conflict in order for the tradition
to be living (Johnstone 1995, 135). In one model, moral truth is defined as
conformity between the conscience and the universal ‘nature of being’ or
ontological order in the universe. This model has its root in an epistemology
or theory of knowledge that was popularized in an era of moral guidelines or
moral hand-manuals, hence the term manualists for the moral theologians of this
period. Manualists from the 17th-19th centuries taught
that truth was the conformity of the mind to objective reality. In this model,
criterion of a true conscience is put in terms of obedience to God’s law: “the
manuals of moral theology operated on a different epistemology… [where]
conscience was conformity to the objective law and the moral order established
by God” (Curran 2004, 19). Due to revisions of epistemology that the limits of
this paper cannot discuss, this model of truth is held to be one among several.
In addition, Michael Himes identifies as part of the
living tradition of the church: a) the model of moral truth as conformity of
the conscience and rightly ordered striving and b) the further model of moral
truth, as the conformity of conscience and the person’s whole spiritual
relationship with God (Himes 2000, 133). A) Rightly ordered striving in moral
life reflects the rise of virtue ethics. It means that the conscience serves in
a person’s pursuit of the Good. The emphasis of the person marks one it apart
from the first model which tended to focus on acts and therefore on the
exercise of judgment by the conscience. B) Further, the third model likewise
shifts from acts but this time reframes the ‘pursuit’ in terms of spirituality,
thus drawing a broader circle around personhood. Situated in this model, the
conscience can be viewed as the heart that discerns movements of the Holy
Spirit with gifts from the Spirit.
Thus, a critical rudiment for discussion
of the conscience is the notion of moral truth. Because God’s law and its
application appeared to hold less importance in some theologians reflection on
the conscience it was deemed necessary by the magisterium to observe the
potential hazard. Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993) that moral
theologians appear to propose a theory of ‘double truth’ (VS, 56). They have witnessed that an individual may act wrongly,
and rightly; for an individual straitjacketed by limited material resources,
for example, an act may be performed that is wrong in ‘itself’ but right. The
Pope recognized a slippery slope argument: dramatically expressed by John
Finnis: “the first socially approved exception to a norm, such as one may never
choose to kill an innocent person, shows that there is no reason why we should
limit satisfying our desires provided we are willing to accept the cost or
risk” (Hogan 2001, 31) In effect, if some acts could be right in a given
situation, what is the implication of situationally determined, moral activity,
if not the diminishment of the value (God-) given to moral norms? The question
critiques pluralism, supposes a worst-case scenario of subjectivism, yet preserves
a consensus long held by shepherd Church, the truth, the way. Jurgen
Moltmann explains the Church’s concern
for man: “When a man who cannot but be under the law arrogates to himself this
exclusive right of a judge and puts himself in the judge’s place … he commits
blasphemy of self-deification” (Moltmann 1974, 128-29).
We
contend that the preservation of moral truth is still possible in one who
exercises discernment of good means in given contexts. Further discussion on
this point follows below where self-reification [making of one’s self a thing;
e.g. “Conscience is a treasured commodity in contemporary culture” (Hogan 2001,
9)] is guarded against as the other extreme. Regarding the so-called ‘double’
of truth, the nearer question may ask about the model of moral truth in use by
the theologian (VS, 56; cf. Johnstone
1995, 129).
Reason
Conscience is a judgment of reason (Catechism n. 1778).
We can explore this teaching keeping in mind that prudence is either a) the
right judgment of reason or b) analogous to art, we can gather a summary of the
debate according to Johnstone:
“Some
authors who favor an objective-intellectual model of conscience emphasize that
conscience is distinct from prudence, and that conscience does not coincide
with the act of prudence. Others, while insisting that prudence does not
determine the truth of conscience, see the two as complementary, others again
identify (right and certain ) conscience and prudence, or argue that prudence
determines the truth of conscience” (Johnstone 1995, 133-34).
We
should not be surprised that the multiple contentions appear to overlap with
those of moral truth. Prudence is too human and therefore fallible to
“determine” the truth of conscience. Non-determinists find fault with theories
of the social-construction, which seem to deify man. To reason for the
‘creativity’ of conscience has risked such accusation for the purpose of
vaulting the possibility of prudence, as virtue of conscience.
Reason
must be open to the public, the everyman. It is a matter of who sets the
agenda. At a basic level we would be remiss to forget that the driving option
for the poor has indeed set the agenda for a discussion of reason. Background
to support this opening follows.
The
notion of reason has long invited the willing to ‘come and see’ (Jn. 1:39). Augustine
held a neo-Platonic theory of illumination with which he articulated
conscience, for the first time using the image of the voice of God (Demmer 2000,
17). Two paths diverged: on the one hand, in Thomas Aquinas’s emphasis of practical
reasoning, prudence was analogous to art. With practice one obtained the deft
ability to create from imagination what is appropriate, most expressive, yet
keeping harmony among many parts (Curran 2004, 12). Speaking of imagination,
Richard Gula points to the way we are shaped by magnanimous personalities, the
superheroes of television and film, the Olympians—“such people fascinate us and
hold more influence in our lives than abstract principles do” (Gula 1992, 97-98)
On the other hand, William of Ockham (1285-1347) found that following the
judgments of “right reason” qualified precedence to obedience to God’s will
over the judgment of conscience because “in any given instance, one always has
to admit at least the possibility of a change in the divine will” (Billy 2001, 7).
From the period of medieval scholasticism through the era of the manualists,
reason was depicted with increasing attention to rules and arguments were
distilled by logical turns. Breaking from the company of his contemporaries,
the manualist Zalba betrayed the legal model of conscience that had developed
in view of syllogistic reasoning. Zalba pointed beyond the application of
general principles in conscience to “a certain sense or intuition of probity”
(Curran 2004, 8). Other notions of reason have been challenged. On the one
hand, the Kantian view of the conscience as an internal tribunal reflected a
reduction of reason to a subjective state of mind (Demmer 2000, 19). This
subjectivism or autonomy of conscience is rejected in official Catholic
teaching: “The assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience…can be
at the source of errors of judgment” (Catechism n. 1792).
On
the other hand, the notion of a universal legislating reason strove for a kind of
Archimedean standpoint situated beyond historical and cultural contingency
(Benhabib 1992, 3). In what is accepted as the underpinning proposal for Linda
Hogan’s work on conscience (Hogan 2001, 130), Seyla Benhabib has more recently
built a case for a move “from a substantialistic concept of rationality to a
discursive, communicative concept” (Benhabib 1992, 5). She is skeptical that a
universalist legistlating [sic] reason could deal with situation and context
“with which practical reason is always confronted (Benhabib 1992, 3). Due to
its genderblindness, legistlating reason has failed to give the condition for
“thematization” of issues most important for women (Benhabib 1992, 13). She
argues for what she calls “a Habermasian model of the public sphere” where what
is reasonable to discuss “cannot be limited a priori” and further, “lines can
be redrawn by the participants in the conversation” (Benhabib 1992, 13). With
the cultivation of “representative thinking”—a term she borrows from Hannah
Arendt—she asserts that “universalism is still viable: if interactive,
cognizant of gender difference, contextually sensitive, and not situation
indifferent” (Benhabib 1992, 3, 8). Using these proposals, Linda Hogan has put
forward a personalist model which emphasizes autonomy of the person and
prioritizes responsibility of individuals in moral matters. Further, conscience
mediates the divine law; and ethics must give recognition to the role of
circumstances and intentionality (Hogan 2001, 29). According to Brian Johnstone
there is an “element of a personalist understanding of conscience in GS [Gaudium et Spes n. 16], also present in Vertitatis Splendor” (Johnstone
1995, 134).
Self
A
third component necessary for a discussion of conscience is the notion of the
self. The Second Vatican Council referred to above was the first document in
Church history to provide official teaching about the conscience. The passage
above cited on the ‘dignity of conscience’ allows for theological
investigation, both regarding language of personal dignity as well as an
interpretation of conscience that is personalist, i.e. “not in relation to an
abstract, ontological order, but in regard to the ontology of the person”
(Johnstone 1995, 134-35). “In reality persons are constituted in a complex
unity of fragmentary and varying narratives, commitments and values that change
over time and that may pull us in different directions” (Hogan 2001, 129)
In
classical antiquity it was popular to refer to an individual’s experience of
awareness or consciousness. For the philosopher Chrysippus this was not
exclusive to humans and therefore indicated animal life; he included no moral
element but simply a consciousness that a creature has “of its own composition”
(Pierce 1955, 14). Compare this to the Lacanian view in psychoanalysis in what
he calls the “mirror stage of development” (Lacan 1996, 334). Judith Butler
states in Bodies that Matter that in
this view an identification made with another precedes the ego; that this
continues into adulthood where identificatory relations “are never simply made or achieved; they are insistently constituted, contested, and
negotiated” (Butler 1993, 76). She took a Nietzscean tact to emphatically claim
there was no doer behind the deed in order to stress that gender was strictly
something performative (Butler 1990: 25). Seyla Benhabib is likewise skeptical
of the “male” ego that is “abstract, disembedded, autonomous” (Benhabib 1992, 3).
In her view, others must be viewed as concrete others but she qualified this:
“view every moral person as a unique individual, with a certain life history,
disposition and endowment, as well as needs and limitations” (Benhabib 1992, 10).
For Sidney Callahan, “[t]here must be an awareness or connectedness with the
real outer environment at the same time as an awareness of the inner
environment of the self as self” (Callahan, 2001 41). This indicates an
operation in a “complex double-directed way” (Vischer 2010, 10). According to
Anne Patrick: “the individual is always a self-in-relation to others, and our
awareness of moral obligation is intimately bound up with our experiences of
others who are significant in our lives” (Patrick 1996, 36). Further
explorations at the crossroads of gender study and theology show that new
readings of Biblical texts are possible when the self is reconceived as a
self-in-relation (Tamez 2012, 84; Wacker 2012, 70).
2.
Re-defining
Conscience
Conscience is embodied sacred truth…I
concretize conscience to emphasize its potency in the world following Bultmann:
“What man has done and does—his decisions—constitute him in his
true nature, that he is essentially a
temporal being” (Hauerwas 1994, 147). Embodiment of moral agency will come to
mean in Linda Hogan’s words ‘confronting the truth’ (Hogan 2001). To understand
the technology-power of the individual, we pause over Michel Foucault’s
apocalyptic Politics of Truth p.181
“techniques which permit
individuals to perform, by their own means, a certain number of operations on
their own bodies, on their own souls, on their own thoughts, on their own
conduct, and this in such a way that they transform themselves, modify
themselves, and reach a certain state of perfection, of happiness, of purity,
of supernatural power, and so on.” (Holland 2002, 81)
The
passage relates how one can form an alliance with oneself to overcome
conditions; however, he challenges once more with the notion of truth which at
the extreme is called self-deification. Josef Fuchs has similarly established a
domain of inner harmony within the self wherein the alliance with self can
transcend oneself. He builds on the fundamental option or deepest core choice
of being in relationship with God; again, the ever present awareness one has of
herself and therefore says ‘yes’ toward a welcome embrace already prepared,
such is the consciousness of oneself created and therefore deeply recognizing
the ever-Creator God (Fuchs 1987, 122). The hallowed events of prayer appear to
occur in this inner chamber or what he terms, “the subject-oriented dimension
of conscience” (Fuchs 1987, 124). We think it is from this profound connection
that one can source resilience to overcome oppression, e.g. solitary
confinement.
In
his classic Discipline and Punish Foucault
perceives how the ideal prison is structured to maximize supervision of inmates
while minimizing the expense to society. His analysis of Jeremy Bentham’s ideal
prison or Panopticon illustrates a
central observation tower where all inmates are visible, while the inmate at no
time is aware whether or not he is observed. Some external indications that he
is watched are enough to give the inmate the impression that he is watched in
perpetuity and thereafter, whether or not a guard is present in the tower the
inmate monitors his own behavior according to what will serve his
self-interest, namely avoid further penalty. As Judith Butler notes this is an
attempt to appropriate the Nietzschen concept of internalization (Butler 1990, 29).
The
notion of the self that we use here identifies the sociological plane of the
person to be explicit about the structural violence one experiences in solitary
confinement. Some further comments on the self can clarify the “sight” of the
psychological wound made by this punishment. Butler’s work Gender Trouble is a critique of the notion of the disembedded,
autonomous self. Her project recruits from Nietzche in denying being, quoting On the Genealogy of Morals: “there is no
doer behind the deed” in her argument that gender is purely performative
(Butler 1990, 25). According to Paula Black, who surveys a feminine culture,
another who has taken the Foucauldian view is Sandra Lee Bartky. She asserts
that women internalize the so called “Beauty-Complex” in order to avoid the
internal and external sanctions for non-conformity (Black 2006, 145-49). The
internal sanctions are expressed by Charles Taylor’s analysis of the identity
crisis: “I define who I am by defining where I speak from, in the family tree,
in social space, in the geography of social statuses and functions, in my
intimate relations to the ones I love, and also crucially in the space of moral
and spiritual orientation within which my most important defining relations are
lived out” (Taylor 1989, 35). When these same important defining relations are
unable to be lived out, a crucial dimension of oneself is imperil.
On
the contrary, the pursuit of a concretized fundamental option involves the
restructuring of oneself through bonds of love and solidarity. We can
renegotiate our identity so that our own well-being depends on the well-being
of those who face crushing burdens.
Patrick: “Internalizing the voices of the victims of
injustice … This may in fact be … that elusive entity we call a ‘properly
formed conscience’—one that hears the voices of those adversely affected by the
systems we live by, as well as by what we choose to do and what we never get
around to doing” (Patrick 1996, 197)
The Historical Perspective
of the ‘Primacy of Conscience’
Here
we revisit the terrain of ambiguity mentioned in the discussion of moral truth.
We stated earlier that some theologians “have witnessed that an individual may
act wrongly, and rightly; for an individual straitjacketed by limited material
resources, for example, an act may be performed that is wrong in ‘itself’ but
right.” We consider a historical overture beginning with the contributions to
the theology of conscience from Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Abelard (Keenan
2010, 39). These contemporaries dealt with the confusion of values one can make
and therefore the wrongness of actions one can take--hence the phenomena of
“erroneous conscience”. Clairvaux (1090-1153) taught that all falsehood was
sinful but not Abelard (1079-1142), who opined of moral motives. The lie that
protects the safety of oneself or another is not a sin; in fact just the
opposite, and we should not be called sinners for this, but be known as truly
good.
Enter
Peter Lombard (1095-1160). Must one obey church teaching? The presumption is
heavily affirmative. That the teaching of the church should always be held
sacred was only questionable to the extent there was a rising affirmation that
the conscience held authority. Lombard ( may have posed the dilemma
provocatively; and then hedged, “affirming that one is not obliged to follow
one’s conscience when at odds with church teaching” (Keenan 2010, 36). Aquinas
crested the rising wave that the conscience held ultimate authority. From
Aquinas we hold in tradition the ‘primacy of conscience’.
Fast
forward to the Second Vatican Council and we see these two strains in The Declaration of Religious Liberty .
n.14 resembles the position of Lombard: “in forming their consciences the
faithful must pay careful attention to the holy and certain teaching of the
church. For the Catholic Church is by the will of Christ the teacher of truth.”
In short, the Church holds authority. On the other hand, n.3 resembles the position of Aquinas: “The
human person sees and recognizes the demands of the divine law through
conscience. All are bound to follow their conscience faithfully in every sphere
of activity so that they may come to God, who is their last end.”
The
Catechism of the Catholic Church published by John Paul II (1993, 1997) appears
unambiguous between these two positions. We see that “education of conscience
is indispensable” (n. 1783) that it is “a lifelong task” (n. 1784) and are
reminded that “conscience can make an erroneous judgment” (n. 1786). Thus the Catechism
gives emphasis to the position of Lombard.
Biblical
Perspective: Consequent Conscience
We
follow the careful reading of St. Paul in the context of Hellenist culture by
C.A. Pierce, a protestant theologian and author of The Conscience in the New Testament (1955).
Because
we are approaching the topic of conscience from a starting point of the Arab
Spring and therefore the inflicted awareness of structures of sin that the
popular uprisings brought to worldwide attention, it is appropriate to assume
the presuppositions that are more typical of Protestant scholars, that is,
coming to Scripture with a heightened sense of sin and the notion of salvation
by a God who saves, even if later we will resume the Catholic stress on works
and their importance in God’s plan. It is well accepted that St. Paul uses the
word syneidesis (
συνεδησις) which he found from popular Hellenist usage (Curran 2004, 6). Philipe
Delhaye has defined syneidesis as “the moral personality, the centre
of the soul where choices are worked out and responsibilities undertaken”
(Delhaye 1968, 42). Such a definition for
conscience is for C.A. Pierce unacceptable if it understands choice with
orientation toward the future: “Conscience is the reaction of the whole man to
his own wrong acts. … Conscience does not look to the future (Pierce 113, 114)”
Moreover, “The New Testament emphatically denies the view that regards
conscience as a guide to future action” (Pierce 1955, 117).
Catholic writers such
as Claus Demmer are quick to point out that conscience is no way an oracle, but
more like an organ that functions in the human person in service of one’s being
in Christ. The reliance here is not in fact on the Greek syneidesis but the term introduced by Jerome in his translation to
Latin—synderesis—which Demmer says
“describes the power of conscience that survived even the Fall and was
understood as the person’s inner call
to authenticity and pursuit of the human good” (Demmer 2000, 17). In this view synderesis refers to a person’s faculty
of apprehension (Vischer 2010, 3). The Catholic Catechism proclaims: “when he
listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking” (n. 1777).
The ‘voice of God’ metaphor is better understood as a neo-Platonic concept as
formulated by St. Augustine:
Augustine is particularly
[influential] …he associated for the first time the reality of conscience with
the image of the voice of God. To understand this image, one must view it not
as an infallible oracle but, against the backdrop of the “theory of
illumination,” as a neo-Platonic theory that Augustine reinterpreted according
to his theology of creation and his epistemology. It is perfectly clear, then,
why conscience is defined as sedes Dei—that is, the privileged place in
the person where God dwells. (Demmer 17)
What
Demmer alludes to finally, of course, is paragraph 16 of Gaudium et Spes, from the Second Vatican Council: “Conscience is the most secret core and
sanctuary of a person. There we are alone with God, Whose voice echoes in our
depths (John 1:3, 14).” Catholic tradition is highly positive: “In a wonderful
manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and
neighbor” (GS 16; cf. Eph. 1:10).
This official teaching is the basis for theologians to argue: “…just as the conscience of Antigone,
[the conscience] can recognize a higher claim that exposes the pretensions of
tyranny and oppressive social conventions.” Yet it must be remembered
that the Greek syneidesis carried
from Hellenistic usage a far different meaning. I suggest that the meaning is
in defense of the oppressed, for as Monsignor Romero of El Salvador said, “let
those who have a voice, speak out for the voiceless”. Our God has given us a
voice; silence is the voice of complicity (Bourgeois 24).
C.A. Pierce might point
to the phrase in Gaudium et Spes “to obey
[the conscience] is the very dignity of being human; according to it we will be
judged” (GS 16; 2 Cor. 6:10). For
Pierce, a Hellenist reading of this would have a very ominous sound. To reach
this conclusion he studied Stobaeus who tracks popular phrases from the sixth,
fifth and fourth centuries BC and first century AD. Syneidesis belonged to a group of popular phrases taken up as
material by Ethics. A related term αύτᾧ συνειδέναι is the focus of Pierce’s
study: “[It] means literally I am conscious of…in myself or I feel that I…. A
use of this developed from this where the content of the consciousness is the
moral quality of the subject’s own acts or behavior” He points to how Euripides
(440 BC) makes Orestes say he suffers syneidesis
(συνεδησις): he knows that he has done terrible things (Pierce 30). Inclusion
of the moral element of αύτᾧ συνειδέναι Pierce defines it: “to share knowledge
with one’s self—to be privy…with one’s self—to hug a (possibly guilty) secret
to one’s self—to be a witness for or against one’s self or to bear witness to
one’s self” (Pierce 18). The ominous sound reverberates again as Socrates is
condemned to die on false testimony; “he is content to let their own συνεδησις
punish those who perjured against him” (Pierce 1955, 40). Philo (40 AD) calls it the terrible accuser,
the judge and witness; Plutarch (80 AD) called it an ulcer in the flesh; pain;
suffering parallel with the memory of ill deeds (Pierce 140-141). Such woe is
like a gambler cursed forever with “the worse lot” (Wisdom 17.11). This
recounting is necessary since the New Testament writers had no material inspiration
from the Old Testament (Pierce 1955, 13). He summarizes:
Συνεδησις comes into Christianity
entirely from the everyday speech of the ordinary Greek with its own
connotation, basically, the pain suffered by man, as man, and therefore as a
creature involved in the order of things, when, by his acts complete or
initiated, he transgresses the moral limits of his nature (Pierce 1955, 54)
Nothing indicates that the
meaning of synderesis had to do with
the future. The manner of expression to the one Paul will use (αύτᾧ συνειδέναι)
is in Xenophon used as a moral positively good: “We know with ourselves that we
began as children and still continue in the practice of noble and good works”
(Pierce 1955, 23). For Paul it is “I am
not conscious of anything against me…but the one who judges me is…” (1 Cor
4.4). Even if softened by St. Paul the connotation of terror is implied in his
awe of the Lord. What we turn to next will show that the terror is always
rooted in reality, because actions that do not conform to conscience mean the
future destruction of community.
Revisiting Truth:
The Notion of Truth in a U.S. Context
Observations made above revealing
contentions about models of truth can now be revisited. In general the
philosophic contention of truth is mixed with a socio-cultural one. The Greek
Philosopher Diogenes pronounced that he could walk the earth in search of one
honest man, and it was said that the American Experiment would produce the
environment that honest man could live in.
We saw that Michael Himes points to
models of truth expressed by the conscience in right striving and as reflective
of one’s spiritual relationship with God. For example, one assumes God is with
us and to probe forward, can always asking oneself on the brink of decision,
“By acting this way, do I bring myself closer to God?” (Delhaye 1968, 246). Himes,
theology professor at Boston College and author of Doing the Truth in Love (1995), speaks of truth at what could be
one of the epi-centers of American virtue ethics, a theological outgrowth of
post-Vatican II. To disregard the climate of national election as a secular
sphere from which the human personality read the signs of the times is in such
a view to dissemble the human in
abstracto. It must be admitted then that in the context of my study at
Boston College there is a certain gravity that motivates the question.
Contextual theologies consider the relevance
of an author writing in situ where,
by convenience of cultural proximity, one’s access to sensus fidelium or the sense of the faithful stipulates the
conditions of his reception of Catholic tradition. We have in mind the work of
James Cone (‘Jesus is Black’) Rosemary Radford Ruether (Woman Healing the Earth) or Clemens Sedmak (Doing Local Theology). The implications for the character of an
individual have been traced by Stanley Hauerwas. He takes into account the
charge against striving-man: Sisyphus-like, in the words of Moltmann:
“suffering in a superficial, activist, apathetic and therefore dehumanized
society can be a sign of spiritual health” (Moltmann 315). Hauerwas distinguishes
“contextualism” from “situationalism” where the former means that the Christian
life is determined by conforming to what ‘God is doing in the world to make and
keep human life human’ and the later allows the self to be at the mercy of each
new event “as if it must constantly begin anew” yet this maintains the guard of
God’s free grace (Hauerwas 1994, 5, 6). Philipe Delhaye: “Choice after choice,
he builds his ‘self’; he fashions for good or ill his moral interior: intus hominis quod conscientia vocatur (Augustine,
In Ps., 45,3, PL 36, 515 C)” (Delhaye 1968, 97). St. Augustine famously framed
the balance of contemplation and action on the tension of Mary and Martha,
Peter and John. These moral pairs indicate the inward-outward dynamism of one’s
spiritual relationship with God, and consequently the context-spirit-context
rhythm of one’s worldly circulation. Further, the pairs should suggest the
intersubjectivity that, Richard McCormick says determines the objective moral
quality of our actions:
The morality of our actions
requires a larger setting than that present in the assessment of immediate
effects—that of community-building or destruction of community. Every action,
as an intersubjective reality, is either a form of community or destruction of
it. That determines its objective moral
quality” (McCormick 1978, 14).
In sum, we return to the search of
Diogenes for the honest man. Honesty requires more than telling a truth. It
means more than eternal repetition of that truth. To speak the truth is never
enough. Truth is chosen in community where it bears likeness; honesty is to act
with integrity in the world. Communities are built one act of conscience at a
time, constantly building itself anew.
Toward a
Politicized Conscience
Is the conscience a
politicized concept? How have some appropriated the Catholic Moral discourse on
conscience in the public arena? Various prominent U.S. Catholics publicly
dissented with papal teaching of Humanae
Vitae on account of conscience (Patrick 1996, 102-33). More recently, truth
claims made on the authority of conscience have arisen in discussions among
U.S. Catholics concerning the cases of prominent scholars Margaret Farley and
Elizabeth Johnson in addition to the well-known activist Roy Bourgeois. Oppositional
editorializing among U.S. Catholics evidently existed when Josef Fuchs felt
impelled to erase the error:
“The dilemma ‘conscience or
magisterium’ …does not exist. There exists only living fidelity in the church
as the hierarchically ordered community, but this in turn cannot exist without
the responsible conscience of those who bear the fidelity, for it is only via
the responsibly formed conscience that the magisterium can achieve significance
in the life of the person.’ (Fuchs 1993, 165)
The
operative word that Fuchs uses is fidelity. He claims to negotiate tension
between teaching and practice in terms redolent with the connotation of
committed relationship. For example, the American Jesuit John Courtney Murray
is remembered for the cosmopolitanism advanced carefully in the Declaration on
Religious Freedom, produced during the Second Vatican Council. In a prime example where nuance protected the
capacity for individual Catholics to make authoritative claims of conscience we
see room allowed for guidance to come not strictly from the magisterium but
also from more proximate authorities. Paragraph n. 14 states, “In the formation
of their consciences, the Christian faithful ought carefully to attend to the
sacred and certain doctrine of the church.” As Richard Gula notes, a previous
draft read “Ought to form their consciences according to the teaching of the
church” (Gula 1989, 159). Because the Bishops declared this too restrictive
replacing “according to” with the less compulsory “attend to” Gula finds that
the church has not made its own teaching the exclusive source for moral
discernment. “The less restrictive reading means … Other circumstantial and
personal factors also must be considered in trying to resolve a conflict of
values.” (Gula 1989, 159)
The Truth of Mohammed Bouazizi
and the Arab Spring
The United Nations’ Arab Human Development Report in 2003
shows the recommendations for emergency repairs to meet the projected needs to
support a bulging population of youth (Pollack 2011, 3). Nonconformity with
these recommendations is one factor producing instability in the North
African/Near East regions. The culpability of any single individual has not
been questioned, nor has the UN body been faulted.
Let
us now address the phenomena of Arab Spring while recalling our initial foray
into contentions with moral truth, reason, and self. For failure to implement
the UN recommendations, one might say, moral truth was not obtained. That is
not obvious if we use the first model of truth in a syllogistic sense. Recall
this that this model addresses the conformity of the conscience to God’s law. Murder
is against the commandment of God; the man murdered himself so it must be a
wrongful act. Here one’s self is reduced to his doing; and while we agree that
the moral man must be performative, and that intentions to repair injustice are
insufficient, in this sense the deed is everything. But one’s self is in fact
symbolic, a performance of relationality, and this means the being counts. We
must be held accountable!
Moral
truth is also found recognizing that the UN recommendations require persons to
implement them. We ask who is the doer behind the deed? Thus, if we consider
the intelligence of Mohammed Bouazizi to emulate the famous self-immolation by
a Vietnamese Buddhist monk whose blazing image touched the moral imagination of
a guilty, imperial nation, then we begin to use the second model in assessment
of the rightly ordered striving. This model of moral truth shows concern for
the person in the midst of circumstances and how the person strives virtuously
to flourish. In this view it is possible to see the significance of Qatar’s
Academy of Change which was responsible for enhancing the capacity for change
by promoting the work of non-violent theorist Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy (Christiansen 2012, 133). The view
of the person as a socially constituted being takes account how Bouazizi became
inseparable from activists in Tahrir Square and acknowledges the process by
which the eventual judgment of revolution was prepared, what practical
reasoning and strategies from Sharp were appropriated to the Egyptian context. Oppressive
tactics by the government deterred such organizing, so in this view of moral
truth the question of the non-deterministic psychologist Sidney Callahan has
special place: “How does a person develop and maintain an adherence to
conscience in the face of intense deprivation, psychological pressure,
persecution, and outright torture?” (Callahan 1991, 4).
Again,
to use the third model recall that Himes suggested that conformity of the
conscience and the whole spirituality of a person. Unlike the first model in
which awareness to principles and norms is stressed, this model includes the
value of moral emotions and everyday moral interactions in our
micro-relationships (friends, family, co-workers) and in our
macro-relationships (international relations). If the first model should
emphasize the corporal works of mercy, and the second call for the virtue of
solidarity, the third attributes the sin of sloth to neglect of furtherance of
the common good. If we presume in our view the Catholic Papal Social Teaching
against social sin then we could view how the recommendations pointed to flaws
in the societal structure of education and industry for which policy and
programs would require immediate injection of capital as well as legislative
infrastructure, capacity building for implementation and enforcement; the
recommendations signified a moral claim in the sense that structural poverty is
scientifically proven to create conditions of disease and crime, while
preventing access to nutrition, health care, education and skilled employment.
Since it was given appropriate recommendations to restructure, the neglect of
such reform led to an intolerable grievance of people as they came to recognize
the choices that their government had made. A proponent of the first model
might take into account Catholic Papal Social Teaching qualifying with growing
favor the means of non-violence to resist the aggression of an armed oppressor.
More likely however, without recognition of the intention of the person or the
spirituality of moral coercion it is doubtful that the selected moral norm to
apply would be the honor of one’s parents or the love of neighbor because of
the baldness of the suicide.
Epilogue
We
find that historical events confront us. Conscience takes into account the
concrete historical event bearing moral claims that we halt. We respond “within”
conscience when signs of injustice have a way of implicating us in our personal
lives. “Conscience is the subsequent
pain which indicates that sin has been committed by the man who suffers it.”
(Pierce 1955, 117). The reality of the world is in fact not remote, nor God
remote to the reality of the world. Conscience is what inflicts one with the
sorrows of the world; not ‘God-in man’ but ‘the pain suffered by man’ (Pierce
1955, 54) e.g. the cry of the poor. The gift of remorse stings us in conscience;
this is not ‘truth in itself’ but ‘truth in myself’(Fuchs 1987, 125). It stings
so that we acknowledge our failing for not having more deeply committed to
God’s justice. Conscience can be the place at the foot of the cross where we
gain a felt-sense of shared suffering with crucified peoples. The consequent
conscience, ultimately, is where we recognize our self-in-being-crucified.
Emphasis on the model of moral truth
where conscience is in conformity to the whole spirituality of a person raises
other implications. Much of spirituality specifies what in giving emphasis on
the inflicting, consequent conscience we have not. We know with Aquinas that
prudence is an art, and we know the practice required to discern the spirits
that come to the soul. The different inspirations sift out into peace or
remorse, for “especially in considering the consequent conscience, the remorse
of a bad conscience is contrasted with the peace of a good conscience” (Curran
2004, 10). It was the proposal of ours that reflection on a concrete historical
event led us to immediate conclusions about reality and that we had to rectify
injustice rather than perpetuate it. What follows could allow the sequel,
showing what the antecedent conscience means and exploring the fullness of
analogical implications: where conscience is to person, the Arab Spring is to
Global Civil Society. These three starting points head in that direction.
1.
Is
Bouazizi one of ‘those who renounce the use of violence…and resort to methods
of defence that are otherwise available to weaker parties’ ? Gaudium et spes (n.
78)
2.
Is
the Arab Spring a sign of the Holy Spirit? “Among the signs of hope we should
also count the spread…of a new sensitivity ever more opposed to war as an
instrument of resolution of conflicts between peoples, and increasingly
oriented to find effective but ‘non-violent’ means to counter the armed
aggressor” (John Paul II 1995, 27).
3.
“It
is undeniable that the goals that inspire the movements (Human dignity,
self-government, the rule of law, non-violent political change, and sometimes
religious pluralism) are also the aspirations which recent Catholic Social
Teaching has identified as signs of the times.” (Christiansen 2012, 133-34).
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