Newman on Conscience (part 1)

I haven't posted anything for a while as I was on holiday. Anyway, here is a post on Newman's attitude towards conscience and its 'freedom'.

The role conscience played in religious life for Newman can hardly be understated. In fact, Henri Bremond goes so far as to say that “for him…the whole religious edifice rests on the conscience.” Newman certainly spoke in very high terms about conscience, calling it “the aboriginal vicar of Christ”. It is an essential constituent of the religious life because it affords the individual an immediate certainty of God’s presence in the world – for Newman, to listen to the voice of conscience is to listen to the Living God Himself.

This ‘immediate presence’ is not to be understood as anything extraordinary or ‘mystical’ in the rigorous sense of the word – it is perfectly ‘ordinary’ and can be experienced by all human beings. It is therefore not surprising that Newman thought that the greatest proof of God’s existence is the ‘moral proof’, that is to say, conscience itself. As he himself states: “[The] Law as apprehended in the minds of individual men, is called conscience.” In looking inwardly one finds one’s conscience – a knowledge of good and evil, and this leads to an understanding of sin; which is to disobey this moral law inscribed in our hearts. The Law is known to be an ultimate law and cannot be reduced to a mere socially constructed law. From disobedience of the Law come feelings of guilt and this leads to the question of from whence this Law comes. The feelings of guilt will also necessarily lead to a search for salvation and this prepares the individual for the acceptance of Christianity. One recalls here Kierkegaard’s statement to the effect that the only way to Christianity is through an agonized conscience. Newman would have agreed.He even goes so far as to say that, were it not for conscience, he would be an atheist, a pantheist or a polytheist for he sees no reflection of the Creator in this “busy little world.”

It is interesting to note the contrast between Newman's view and that of contemporary 'Intelligent design' proponents. Newman states flat out that "I believe in design because I believe in God; not in God because I see design". Perhaps all 'ID' theorists should bear in mind that "The Almighty is something infinitely different from a principle, or a centre of action, or a quality, or a generalisation of phenomena".

More to come tomorrow (hopefully). Once again, comments are always welcome.

I've taken lots of the quotes from a useful article in New Blackfriars, vol. 88, 'Newman on the Argument from Design' by Noel Keith Roberts)