On Conscience (05/04/24)
“Let examples demonstrate what conscience is. If someone has in their possession another person's goods without that person's knowing it, which
makes it possible for that person to keep them without fear of the law, loss of position, or loss of reputation, and yet they return those goods to the other person because they are not his own, they have conscience. They do what is good for its own sake, and what is right for its own sake. Or if someone has the opportunity to attain an eminent position, and then, on seeing that another who seeks it is more useful to the country, yields the position to that other person for the sake of the
country's good, they have conscience.” (Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven 9120)
[Conscience…what a
fascinating subject!] True conscience, the Writings say, is formed gradually by [our spiritual growth and rebirth], and it is more perfect with those who can be more enlightened in the truth of faith than others. This might suggest that when we have decided that something is a matter of conscience, we shouldn’t conclude that the books are closed and the matter has been decided for all time. Our knowledge and understanding of the truths that apply may be less accurate and complete, our
enlightenment less than it may become; and while conscience is to be protected, it is not to be guarded against truth!
We should be ready at all times to test our conscience by the Word, to re-examine the [principled] stands we take in the light of its truth, and to change them if necessary. In this there is no disloyalty to conscience, but an abiding loyalty to the truth that should form our conscience.
Another teaching about conscience is that it is twofold: the conscience of what is good and the conscience of what is just, or living according to the precepts of faith
from and inner affection and living according to civil and moral laws from an outer affection. The person who has received internal conscience acts from it in civil and moral affairs also; but the one who has not acts in these affairs from external affection alone, and that affection cannot with safety be followed without question as a reliable guide.
(NCL Editor, “On Conscience”, 1970 - edited)
