Guilt & the Conscience

The "conscience" is a mystery of the mind, and of living. In many ways, its mystery is at the center of the question of "being" and the "pursuit of righteousness." There is much to be curious about.

Guilt, for instance. Of course, it is widely known that guilt is often neurotic and based not in health but in pseudoreality. Fear of an abusive husband who really is, emotional or otherwise, is a fear based in a "real" danger, who could deny it? But an irrational fear that a spider is crawling on you is "neurotic." Unless of course you are walking under a doorway or through a barn where a spider fell onto you yesterday, or a month ago, or even two years ago. But if when you walk through a mall, or stand in a stall, or get a phone call, you cringe at the thought that a spider might be on you, well that is unmistakably neurotic, for the danger is likely not present and the fear, therefore, irrational. The fear may simply be a minor neuroticism, and so be justified to be called a "quirk," or be much more severe, and so be justified to be called an "anxiety," or "neurosis."

Then there are the existential fears: the fear of pain, of loneliness, or of death. The fear is in response to a mystery of life, of that which is a present possibility but unknown. The whole idea of this fear is unusual and intriguing. It is not necessarily considered neurotic unless it consumes one's sense of self or obstructs the ability to meet the challenges of living.

So anyhow, guilt is much the same as fear, in these ways.

But what of "real" guilt? What of the gray areas? What of the question of conscience? Say, if a certain Christian feels "guilty" after watching American Pie or listening to Eminem due to the perversion of sexuality or the excessiveness of explitives... is that guilt merited? Is it neurosis or discernment? The Holy Spirit or the socialization process? Is it conscience? These are curiosities that we have long been curious about. And on which some of us are adamant and others dumbfounded.

C.S. Lewis wrote that we are each given a sort of raw material, perhaps the substance of self, whether socialized or ingrained, out of which we have certain feelings or impulses, and these influence our ideas and desires in regard to how we live and what we choose. Each of us begins and now functions with a whole different raw design or framework, different material. Out of this we must act and choose and live. But our raw material is not what makes us "ethical" or "moral." Instead, the nature of "morality" lies in the acts and choices, in what we make of the raw material, in how we fair with it.

"When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God's eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man hay have shown in winning the V.C. When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend."

And so we are told by God not to judge. Not to judge and yet to hold those "in faith" accountable to some degree. For instance, if one friend feels a certain "conviction" about not watching movies like American Pie or listening to music like Eminem's, or about saying "shit" or drinking beer, or wine, or about not reading or appreciating Scripture "rightly," then how should this friend act, or choose, in this way, so as to do "right" in the way of conscience and not wrongly? And to do this without offending the brother, whether this brother is "in Christ" (or, for that matter, is someone who cares very little about Christ). How, should I say, is the Body supposed to function, at this point?

For, these days, to cultivate and enjoy the community of our brethren seems like such an exhausting task. The Leftist thinkers only want to hold brethren accountable for breaches of their particular "code of social ethics," while the thinkers on the Right only want to hold brethren accountable for breaches of their particular "code of individual morality." Then there are the emerging Postmodern thinkers in the Christian community who simply want everyone to leave everyone alone and just go on enjoying the beauty of God in all things and all the great fellowship minus accountability. (These summations of these three groups are greatly narrow and unfair, yet I mean to echo what I have often heard in the crossfire.)

And so, out of your own particular "raw material," you may choose your own particular "social ethic" or "individual morality" or "community of love and not judgment." But just wait, if you listen, and listen well, you will hear at least the faint subtleties of conscience. And what will it tell you? And what will you do about it?