November Coffee Night - Conscience And Faith

Perseverance in Faith

According to the Catechism:

"Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: "Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.“

• What does this tell you about the importance of acting in good conscience? What does it tell you about the role our conscience plays in our salvation?

Questions to Ponder

• What is conscience?
• Where does it come from?
• How is one’s conscience formed?
• Is it possible for one’s conscience to be misinformed?
• Is it possible for one’s conscience to err?
• What are some of the (positive and negative) things that influence our conscience?
• If you don’t yield to your conscience is it possible to develop a hardened or lax conscience? (i.e. use it or lose it!)

Primacy of Conscience

• Some Catholics claim to base their dissent from catholic teachings on the idea of primacy of conscience. They claim that one should follow one’s conscience above teachings of the Church and that as long as you have prayed and considered Church teaching carefully, you can dissent based on conscience. Do you think this approach to dissent is faithful?

Points to Consider

• The spiritual authority of the church (called the Magisterium) is the ability and authority of the Church to teach the truths found within Divine Revelation.
• Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are also called the Deposit of Divine Revelation.
• Divine revelation comes from God
• In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The word became flesh. John 1:1,14

Subjective Conscience

A Catholic doctor prescribes birth control pills according to his conscience and against catholic teaching because he prefers that alternative over abortion.

• Is he right in choosing between the lesser of the two evils?
• And if he’s wrong, what are the consequences to him, his patient, and to the church as a whole?

Conscience and Politics

According to a voting guide published by a prominent Catholic Apologetics website, there are five non negotiable voting issues: abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage, stem cell research and human cloning.

As the Holy See has pointed out:

“Democracy must be based on the true and solid foundation of non-negotiable ethical principles, which are the underpinning of life in society”

It is suggested that a Catholic acting in good conscience will not knowingly vote in favor of politicians who promote laws that allow these practices.

• What is a good Catholic to do when all the candidates are in favor of one or more of the non-negotiable issue?

• Is not voting an option that one can take in good conscience?

• Should war also be a non-negotiable?

Struggling with your Conscience

• Assume you're being assaulted by a violent and deadly rapist/murderer. Would you kill him to save yourself from being killed? And, if you didn’t fight to the death, could you face God knowing that you didn’t do all you could to preserve the gift of life he gave you?

Clearing Your Conscience

• If one has faith that one’s sins will be forgiven, why do so many people resist confession?
• Do you go to confession to grow and enrich your faith or as a way to clear your conscience?
• Does one have a moral responsibility to do a thorough examination of conscience before each and every confession (i.e. go through the 10 commandments and/or the 7 deadly sins) or is confessing the major “top of mind” sins sufficient for a valid confession, if not, is one committing a sin by being too lazy to do a proper examination of conscience?

Sharing our Faith

• Why do you think people feel uncomfortable sharing the depths of their faith publicly, one on one, or in a group setting when giving testimony, defending our faith, or evangelizing? And does it go against our conscience to not do so when it’s called for?

Conscience & Ethics

• Is the notion of a conscience only limited to faith or can it be included in the scientific worldview?
  
• What is the difference between making an ethical decision as a scientist would call it and using your conscience, as a person of faith would call it… in other words, are the terms ethics and morals interchangeable?

Conscience at the Movies

• Is it morally wrong to watch movies with much violence, profanity, sexually explicit scenes and morally objectionable content? Should one refrain from watching those movies in order to keep a clear conscience? And, one could argue that it may not be advisable and that there are better things to do with one’s time, etc. But is doing something that is not recommended the same thing as acting immorally