Saturday, December 15, 2012

The Historical Event Concetizes Conscience


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[1]. 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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[1] Pope John Paul II Centesimus anus (on the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum novarum), 23,25, &52, in Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heriage, Maryknoll, NY, 1992

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