Conscience

CONSCIENCE. - I. PHILOSOPHY. - In its etymological meaning (from Lat. cum-scientia, conscience συν-εἰδησις = common knowledge, corresponding to judgment) conscience is the awareness of the presence of something to a knowing subject, whether it be a matter of acts and states of mind proper to the subject itself, or of objects and facts of the external world. Conscience is therefore first of all "awareness" of the existence of something in the whole range of the higher life, whether cognitive or affective, of sensibility as of spirit. Conscience therefore implies in its actualization a certain primitive judgment and a synthetic apprehension of the "belonging" of such states, acts, objects, etc. to a subject of inhesion and attribution, by virtue of which they obtain a certain structure in the perceptual and at the same time ontological order, and thereby acquire a meaning. Thus the higher degrees and forms of conscience presuppose higher forms and degrees of structures not only on the part of the object but in the development of the subject's own conscience and of his personality. In this latter field one speaks above all of moral conscience, which is the awareness of good and evil in the concrete, that is, the judgment of morality that everyone must make about his own particular actions. St. Thomas therefore places conscience in an act, that is, in the application of a knowledge: "nomen conscientiae significat applicationem scientiae ad aliquid: unde conscire dicitur quasi simul scire". Psychological conscience is when "consideratur an actus sit vel fuerit"; moral conscience "an actus sit rectus vel non" (De Ver., q. 21, a. 1). The first therefore involves a judgment of existence, the second a judgment of value, and its exercise depends on the moral virtue of prudence (v.): the Germanic language also distinguishes in its verbal forms, psychological conscience (Bewusstsein) and moral conscience (Gewissen).

Far from identifying itself with being, as in idealism, conscience does not identify itself even with life or with the soul, because, while life is continuous, conscience in us is intermittent; indeed not even with knowledge itself, because there is a possession of knowledge distinct from its act, of which conscience makes use and enjoys according to the different opportunities.

Psychology is usually defined as the "science of conscience" (Gemelli): that is, it investigates the forms and laws of the appearing of phenomena and of the actualization of subjective processes according as they relate to the contents both of the subject and of the object. Conscience therefore has a "field" of operation that has its limits with respect to the stimuli or the global conditions that determine it (the so-called maximum and minimum "threshold" of conscience). From this functional point of view Aristotle had already distinguished a sensitive and an intellective conscience. Sensitive conscience is accomplished in two moments: the "common sense" with respect to the existence of acts or objects in the present, which is "sensation of sensation" (κοινὼν αἰσθησις), and as a "common power" (κοινὼν δόνιμις), with which "we perceive that we see and hear" (De An., III, 2, 425 b 12); the conscience of the past is instead a function of memory, to which the perception of time properly belongs (De Mem., I, 450 a 12, 22). Intellective conscience evidently belongs to the intellect (νοῦς) as the capacity for perfect reflection and complete mastery of the act and of its objects both from the point of view of the object and of the action (freedom). Conscience is therefore either "sensation of sensation" or "intellection of intellection". Still summary indications, which will meet with criticism especially from Plotinus (Enn., IV, VI), for whom conscience, from its lowest degrees, is not a simple awareness of objects, but includes an activity of the spirit.

In modern thought a threefold direction has progressively established itself, so to speak, regarding the nature of conscience: negative in empiricism, positive-constructive in criticism and idealism, positive-descriptive in phenomenology.

For empiricism, which runs from classical English phenomenism (especially D. Hume) to the positivism of E. Mach and R. Avenarius down to contemporary neopositivism (especially of the Vienna school), conscience is reduced to the "fact" of attention and exists only as an "epiphenomenon" (v.), that is, a derived function: conscience, asserts, for example, W. Mach, does not express a particular quality, but consists in a particular "connection" (Zusammenhang) of given qualities

(Erkenntnis und Irrtum, Leipzig 1905, p. 41). A predominantly metaphysical treatment was given to the Cartesian "cogito" in Spinoza, for whom "cogitatio" is, together with "extensio", an attribute of substance, and in Leibniz who makes "cogitare" the essence of the monad and is the first to distinguish the two functions of conscience, perception and apperception, the one directed to the explicit content, the other rather to the act. It is well known how Kant, investigating the possibility of valid knowledge, posited a "conscience in general" (Bewusstsein überhaupt), constituted by the "I think" (das Ich denkt) as "transcendental apperception", from which derive the categories according to which the contents of experience can be thought according to necessity. The many obscure points of the Kantian conscience gave rise to the various post-Kantian systems: the idealist systems transformed the gnoseological function that conscience had in Kant into metaphysical reality and substance. For the post-Kantians the "conscience in general" receives the new function of giving origin and consistency to the world of values: there is no value except with respect to a conscience that appreciates, and thus the "value-in-itself" is the necessary correlate of the "thing-in-itself" (W. Windelband, Einleitung in die Philosophie, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1920, p. 255). An energetic attempt to bring conscience back to its original meaning was made by F. Brentano (v.) by indicating, in the wake of Aristotelian philosophy, as the distinctive character of psychic phenomena "intentionality", that is, the necessary reference to an object. Brentano distinguished a twofold conscience, primary and secondary, the one of the object and the other of the act, that which Aristotle had already indicated as "accessory" (ἐν σκρέχω: Met., XII, 9, 1074 b 36). To Brentano is directly linked the phenomenology of E. Husserl, in whose theory of conscience as "pure intentionality" realist and idealist principles coexist together (cf. for example, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie..., Halle a. S. 1913, p. 37). O. Külpe, affirming the positivity of conscience, has claimed for psychology the "method of (provoked) introspection", which has made possible the notable results of "Denk-und Willenspsychologie", which have ensured the originality of our higher processes.

The Brentanian concept of conscience, which did not account for affective subjectivity as "intentionality", has been replaced by that of a conscience as pure "Schauen", understood not only as a "seeing" of conscience, but as the fundamental immediacy of the "apprehensive spirit" in all the extension and variety of its functions (Max Beck). For S. A. Kierkegaard the fundamental disposition of conscience is anguish as radical indeterminacy in the face of good and evil: if "faith" does not establish conscience in the absolute good that is its true object, it sinks into evil and anguish becomes "despair" (cf. The Sickness unto Death, Ital. trans., Milan 1947, especially part 2, B). This ontological-theological structure of conscience is replaced in contemporary existentialism by phenomenological dialecticism, which has a Kantian background in K. Jaspers and a Diltheyan-historicist inspiration in M. Heidegger. In an ontological-phenomenist sense J.-P. Sartre conceives conscience as the "Pour-soi", essentially referred to the "En-soi" (the world) as the impossibility of the absorption of the one into the other (L'être et le néant, 9th ed., Paris 1946, p. 235).

Thus consciousness, if at first it presents itself as that which is absolutely primary and is therefore presupposed by every kind of knowledge and is the condition of philosophy itself, does not manifest itself in its complete reality and nature except in function of a theory of being, and thus comes in turn to be founded, that is, mediated, by a philosophy.

Cornelio Fabro

II. MORAL THEOLOGY

1. Definition and nature

In the moral field it is the immediate practical judgment on the moral character of our actions. It is, that is, a judgment of practical reason, that is, on concrete individual actions, by which the intellect judges concrete singular acts in the light of general ethical principles.

The conscience in its activity fulfills two offices: before the action it indicates the path of order and forbids evil (antecedent conscience); after the action it approves and praises the good performed (conscientiae bonae laetitia paradisus est, St. Augustine: PL 34, 482); and punishes with remorse (Non est pax impiis, Is. 22, 57) the one who has done evil (consequent conscience).

The conscience must not be confused with so-called synderesis, nor with moral science, nor with the natural law. Synderesis (from the Greek συντήρησις = preservation) is both the tendency of the intellect to know the most universal moral principles and their habitual presence in it. It is called by St. Jerome (PL 25, 22) a "igniculus", as it were a spark kindled by God in the human intellect, which enlightens, since it makes the moral principles known, and burns, since it impels to good and draws away from evil: actus eius duplex scilicet inclinatio ad bonum et murmuratio contra malum (Albert the Great, Sum. Theol., 2, tr. 16, q. 99, n. 2, a. 3). Moral science deduces objective conclusions from certain principles, concerning ethical questions; while the natural law — participatio legis aeternae in creatura rationali (Sum. Theol., 1ª-2ªe, q. 91, a. 2) — is the moral order itself in its objective universality made manifest to man by God through the light of reason. Synderesis, moral science and natural law remain in the objective field, while the conscience applies the aforesaid principles and conclusions in the practical judgment concerning an action to be done or already done. Briefly, St. Thomas: lex naturalis nominat ipsa universalia principia iuris; synderesis nominat vero habitum eorum; conscientia vero nominat applicationem quandam legis naturalis ad aliquod faciendum per modum conclusionis cuiusdam (in II Sent., dist. 24, q. 2, a. 3).

This practical judgment of reason can be considered as the conclusion of a syllogism whose major premise is given by the ethical norm (synderesis, natural law, moral science); the minor premise is given by the action to be performed or already performed or to be omitted, to which the moral law is applied; the conclusion declares the conformity or non-conformity of that action with the law (cf. St. Thomas, Quaest. disput. de veritate, q. 17, a. 2).

Thus conceived, the conscience may be called: the voice of God in us that enjoins upon us the application of the law and guides us to the observance of the moral order.

Nothing is more intimate to man than his conscience; and its psychological reality is perceived not only in the grave or extraordinary cases of life, but also in our daily and simple actions we hear its voice. It constitutes a universal phenomenon not limited by the boundaries of nations nor circumscribed by periods of time: and it manifests itself in every man endowed with reason. It is an absolutely undeniable fact that all men of all times and all places make a distinction between good and evil, and therefore we are also faced with a fact universally uniform and constant. And what matters most, the moral law is held by the common run of men to be immutable, obligatory, indeed furnished with sanction; that is to say, that obedience to it must be rewarded, while disobedience must be punished. The foundation of this immutable world of ideas that rules over all human thought cannot be other than God and the eternal ideas of his intellect, and the axiom imposes itself upon reason whereby without God it is impossible to conceive the norm of morality.

2. Opinions concerning the nature and origin of the conscience

Therefore all those are in error who have sought to explain the origin of the conscience or to find a moral law independent of God.

The various conceptions of the nature and genesis of the moral conscience, which arose particularly in modern philosophy, are for the most part a function of the different interpretation that the general ethical systems have given of the moral fact and of moral values. Thus it is clear that where the concept of the moral good as an unconditional value is rejected, making it totally coincide with the pleasant or the useful (ancient and modern hedonism, utilitarianism), the conscience can no longer be affirmed as the judgment of reason on the absolute moral value of our acts, but rather as empirically acquired knowledge of what is pleasant or useful to the individual or to society. For T. Hobbes (1588-1679), who ascribes the distinction between good and evil to primitive social laws, the conscience is nothing but a product of education and custom. A doctrine that was taken up by the various materialistic currents of the eighteenth century (C. A. Helvétius, P. E. D'Holbach), and developed in an associationist sense in the utilitarian empiricism of J. Stuart Mill. The latter traces the moral conscience back to the association that is slowly established between a series of actions and the ideas of utility, praise, precept, reward, or else harm, prohibition, blame, punishment, etc., with which those actions are conjoined from the earliest years of our life in the family and social environment, until they come to be understood as absolutely good or bad in themselves.

C. Darwin and especially E. Spencer took up the associationist theory, expanding it within the general framework of evolution. The moral conscience would be nothing but the ultimate development of a "moral sense" already present in rudimentary form in the social and altruistic tendencies of certain lower species. From these man has inherited it, and he has subsequently perfected it with the successive progress toward the forms of social life: actions of an altruistic character, which impose themselves in society and are at first understood as a simple means to the common good, are gradually then considered as good in themselves, the approval and reward that in every society must be conjoined to them contributing to the formation of this conscience. Thus in evolutionism the moral conscience is nothing but a slow conquest of the human species, destined to reach more perfect and definitive ethical forms. Arose also as a reaction to the ethical positivism of T. Hobbes, the theory of the "moral sense" (A. Shaftesbury, F. Hutcheson and, in part, D. Hume), maintains that the perception of moral good and evil, and therefore the conscience, is to be attributed to an immediate intuitive sentiment, analogous to the perceptive faculty of aesthetic values, distinct and independent of reason. E. Kant, who had at first inclined toward the theory of the "moral sense", vindicates in the second Critique the rational value of the moral conscience, understood as knowledge (or self-attestation of reason) of the universal law, inherent as an a priori form in practical reason (categorical imperative). Apart from the affirmation of the impossibility of deducing the ethical norm from any metaphysical conception and the other inadequacies inherent in the autonomism of the will and in the purely formal character of the moral law, the unconditional value of the conscience, recognized as a fact that imposes itself for itself upon reason, is openly affirmed in the Kantian conception of the law and of the good, as an absolute rational position.

In the more modern ethical theories (e.g., in W. Wundt, E. Westermarck), there is generally a return to conceiving the conscience as a pure expression of the moral sentiment, whose objective foundation is variously understood, more often in a utilitarian and eudaemonistic sense.

More than the product of a true and proper "sense," Christian philosophy affirms conscience, in its essential expression, as a fundamental rational intuition, immanent to the very value of the human person (whence also a justification of the etymological sense of the word), whereby man, as soon as his ethical personality enters into action, fundamentally apprehends his good: which is not restricted to a purely physical value, as for the rest of nature, but is understood as absolute rational fitness, as duty, as ought-to-be. The empirical theories indicated above, apart from the inconsistency of their scientific and philosophical presuppositions, are not capable of giving an adequate explanation of the universality and unconditional value with which conscience asserts itself, even in the very primordial cultural conditions of primitive man. Education and custom, real but secondary and relative factors, can indeed and must influence the development and extension of conscience, but they are not a proportionate cause of the arising in the human spirit of a fact so irreducible and imposing in its universality as is the perception of good and evil, the conscience of duty.

As for the theory of the "moral sense" (also called ethical intuitionism), it is noted that, if it is true that the first awakening of conscience has something immediate and spontaneous about it, so that one may, in a broad sense, speak of an "ethical sense"; nevertheless this does not argue for the absence, even in that first function of the human spirit, of any rational element; rather it serves to indicate, as has been mentioned, the innate disposition of reason toward the immediate and in a certain way unreflective intuition of both the good and the true: a faculty and disposition that the ancients designated by the name "habitus primorum principiorum moralium," or "syndereis." It must further be noted that, even in the later forms of its progressive development, moral conscience is intimately joined with feeling. An act of brutal violence or of ruthless injustice no less provokes the condemnation of reason than a profound feeling of aversion. This, rather than being a proof of the supremacy of feeling in the perception of good and evil, is due to the fact that, in a harmonious development of the human person, the higher activities of reason, acquiring their natural function of pre-eminence, invest and strongly influence all the other activities of the spirit, and in particular feeling. However, this psychological conquest is bound, as has been said, to the formation and harmonious development of the ethical personality of the individual. Moral conscience will be all the more alive, all the more active and determining with regard to action, the more the integral value of the personality is affirmed, in a right formation and education. Where this value weakens or is lacking, through weakness of will, or influenced by adverse circumstances, there can coexist, alongside a normal and perhaps superior development of reason, a moral conscience altogether inoperative and inert in the face of life.

3. Natural and supernatural moral conscience

The conscience that has its foundations in the natural moral norm differs profoundly from the conscience that embraces the supernatural order. For the honest man who is not a believer, conscience asserts itself in the use of right reason and in the consequent will that works the good; whereas for the Christian the horizon of the program of moral activity remains enormously enlarged by the addition of Christian norms, in which the framework of natural morality comes to be summed up, made precise and corroborated.

Moreover, for the believer the fundamental motive from which the moral life takes its start changes: the honest man works the good out of natural love, the Christian bases his moral activity on supernatural love. With this it cannot be understood that natural conscience can abstract from God as the foundation of the moral norm. God remains the ultimate end and the source of the moral norm both in the natural order and in the supernatural order, and the duties toward God are part of the natural norm; just as it must not be understood that a Christian conscience separate from the natural conscience can exist, since the former necessarily includes the latter.

4. Various aspects of conscience

Besides the already mentioned distinction between antecedent and consequent conscience, conscience — and properly antecedent conscience — with regard to conformity with the moral law, can be true or erroneous. One has a true conscience if from true principles one declares licit or illicit a concrete act that really is such; one has an erroneous conscience when, from false principles nonetheless held as true by the subject, or by not rightly applying true principles, one declares licit or illicit a concrete action that really is not such. As is clearly seen, the first occurs when the subjective norm of morality (conscience) coincides with the objective norm; the second when the subjective norm, through the effect of ignorance and error, is discordant with the objective norm. The erroneous conscience can be inculpable or culpable, according as the subject in judging has or has not used due diligence (the first is also called invincibly erroneous, while the second is said to be vincibly erroneous). Furthermore the erroneous conscience is usually distinguished, with regard to the psychic elements of the subject, into scrupulous, perplexed, lax, cauterized, pharisaical: scrupulous is the conscience that for frivolous reasons judges or fears that an action is bad, while it is not such; it is perplexed if it judges an action not right, whether it concludes to act or not; lax is the conscience that, without well-founded and certain reasons, judges in favor of the licitness of the action; it is cauterized if through the habit of committing evil it almost no longer perceives its dishonesty; it is pharisaical if it has no difficulty in approving or judging as lightly prohibited certain gravely illicit acts, while it regards as dishonest certain determinate actions that are not such (Excolantes culicem, camelum autem deglutientes: Mt. 23, 24).

With regard, then, to the degree of assent, conscience is distinguished into certain, probable and doubtful. A certain conscience is had when the subject, without any prudent fear of erring, judges a determinate act licit or illicit; therefore the certain conscience differs from the true: the former excludes the preceding fear of error, but could also fail to agree with the truth, that is, with the objective norm of morality; the latter, besides enjoying subjective certainty, also agrees with the truth or objective norm; it is probable when, while fearing to err, one judges a determinate action as licit or illicit, relying on solid arguments for intrinsic reasons or by authority; it is doubtful if the judgment on the licitness or illicitness of the action remains suspended, or if, even when such a judgment is formulated, the subject is equally uncertain as to its licitness or illicitness. It is noted that, strictly speaking, one could not speak of a doubtful conscience, since this by definition is "a practical judgment of reason," and therefore excludes doubt, which is the suspension of judgment. Accordingly, this aspect of conscience is only touched upon, and for the relevant questions reference is made to the entry SISTEMI MORALI.

With regard to obligation, conscience can be: commanding, prohibiting, permitting or counseling, according as it imposes or prohibits or permits or counsels a determinate action.

5. The duty in regard to conscience

Here is the attitude that must be maintained in the face of the various attitudes of conscience. True and erroneous conscience: a) first of all, the agent is bound to use due diligence so that his conscience may really agree with the objective norm of morality, that is, may be true (Necessaria est inquisitio rationis ante iudicium de eligendis: Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃᵉ, q. 14, a. 1). In fact, since conscience is the proximate norm of action, it is evident that the subject must derive from the objective norm the primary source of morality. If the subject did not apply due diligence, so that the subjective norm came thereby to disagree with the objective norm, it is clear that he would become guilty in cause, that is, indirectly responsible for the action.

b) Man is bound to follow an imperating or prohibiting conscience both in the case where such conscience is true and in the case where it is invincibly erroneous. If, in fact, the conscience is true, granted that it is nothing other than the application of the law to a concrete case, it is clear that it has the same binding force as a just law. And an invincibly erroneous conscience obliges in the same way: "Omne quod non est ex fide, peccatum est" (Rom. 14:23); which text is commonly interpreted, not so much with reference to supernatural faith, but in relation to conscience, in the sense that, when a man acts against his own conscience, he commits sin (cf. Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃᵉ, q. 19, a. 5); whence the axiom of Innocent III: "Quidquid fit contra conscientiam aedificat ad gehennam."

Reason, moreover, clearly says that an action against conscience is not lawful, because in reality the morality of an action is derived not from the obiectum in itself, but "ut proponitur a conscientia"; if, therefore, conscience proposes, even though through invincible error, an act to be done or to be omitted, whoever acts against such conscience would be acting against the moral order. And the specific infraction must be judged in kind and gravity as if the subject had acted, in the same matter, against a right conscience (St. Thomas, Quaest. disp. de veritate, q. 17, a. 4, ad 9). It is evident, however, that if such a conscience, instead of commanding or prohibiting, merely permitted or counseled the action, there would be no obligation to follow such a judgment.

It follows that it is not lawful to act with a vincibly erroneous conscience; in that case the error must be set aside through that due diligence which one is obliged to apply before acting, unless it is a question of an action which does not place the agent in danger of violating the ethical norm. And it is clear that whoever acts with a vincibly erroneous conscience acts against the moral order, realizing the object even in the hypothesis that it is evil; he therefore voluntarily exposes himself to the danger of violating the moral law, which must be judged dishonest.

6. Certain and doubtful conscience

Certainty can be defined with St. Thomas: "Firmitas adhaesionis virtutis cognoscitivae in suum cognoscibile" (cf. In III Sent., dist. 26, q. 2, a. 4); and, as everyone knows, certainty is the effect of intrinsic evidence (when it is born from the force of the reasoning itself) or extrinsic evidence (when it is founded upon human or divine testimony). From the fact, however, that certainty is born from the evidence of truth, it cannot be concluded that a certain conscience must also be a true conscience, since through the effect of ignorance or error it may well happen that the conscience can be false or erroneous even while being certain, as was observed above. Certainty can be metaphysical, physical and moral (v. CERTEZZA); here we are dealing only with moral certainty, which is had when "omnem formidinem errandi, attento ordine morali rerum" can be excluded. Such certainty, taking into account the gravity of the arguments capable of excluding the danger of error, is perfect if it absolutely excludes every reasonable doubt of error; imperfect if, although resting on a solid argument, it nevertheless does not exclude some slight fear of error. Further, there can be speculative certainty (if it concerns only an objective truth without reference to a practical case) or practical certainty (if instead it is a matter of bringing judgment to bear on a case in its special circumstances); thus there can be direct certainty (if it is born from clear and sure internal principles) or indirect certainty (if it is obtained on the basis of indirect, that is, reflex, principles (v. SISTEMI MORALI).

This being premised, it is evident that only a certain conscience (whether directly or indirectly) is the true proximate rule of the morality of human acts. In fact, in order to act, man is bound to use due diligence so that his acts may agree with the objective norm of morality; until he firmly holds that such agreement is verified (certain conscience) the agent finds himself in doubt and therefore exposed to the danger of violating the moral law; which is as much as to say that, should he act, he would virtually will its violation.

For human action, however, moral certainty is sufficient and, ordinarily, even imperfect certainty. In fact, absolute certainty in human acts is often impossible. This principle is proved by the condemnation given by Alexander VIII to the following proposition: "Non licet sequi opinionem vel inter probabilissimam" (Denz-U, 1293). But since even the most probable opinion is not absolutely certain, if it is lawful to follow a most probable opinion, it must be concluded that an imperfect moral certainty is sufficient for human action.

It is moreover undisputed that for acting morally, speculative moral certainty is not required (sometimes impossible to have, since controversial moral questions are very frequent from the speculative point of view) but a practical moral certainty is sufficient.

7. The education of conscience

Everyone understands how grave the problem of the education of conscience is: grave for each individual as for anyone who, by mission or by office, carries out an educational activity. In posing the question of the education of conscience, one poses the problem of the practical honesty of human actions, of the attainment of the ultimate end and of the true good, even temporal, both individual and social. The child, as has been said, as soon as he reaches the use of reason, gradually comes to know by himself the highest moral concepts and principles, and takes them spontaneously as the norm of his actions; but, from this first appearance of the moral life to the possession of a truly virtuous life, there is a long way to go. All the faculties of man cooperate in his moral life, and chiefly reason, the will, and the sensitive appetite.

Reason perceives the law; the will is bound to commit itself victoriously before the good to be accomplished; the sensitive appetite must adhere to the command of the will. Reason perceives, with evidence, that good is to be done and evil to be avoided; but to form an honest man it is necessary to enrich the mind with notions relating to the moral order, to build in the adolescent a solid conviction of the value of reason in the face of duty; it is necessary above all, through a sound education, to strengthen the will, so that it may be able to contain within the bounds of the moral order the passionate impulses that ceaselessly re-emerge and are often impetuous.

Man, in substance, has all the faculties suited to accomplishing good, but in reality acting according to the moral order is the fruit of a struggle between right reason and the contrary tendencies of human nature; since the honest man is not he who sometimes performs good acts, but he who has acquired the habit of acting according to a right conscience. As it is true that a man is distinguished by his intellectual, volitional and affective qualities which he has been able to acquire, so it may be said that a man is distinguished by his conscience. And whoever wishes educate one's own conscience according to Christian morality, one cannot stop at the virtues of the honest man; but one must enrich one's mind with the teachings of the Gospel and conform one's entire private and public life to the sense of the Christian conscience: one must acquire the supernatural virtues. To the obligations of the honest man in individual, family and social life, for the Christian are added the obligations that flow from a conception of life based on supernatural love.

On freedom of conscience: v. LIBERTÀ.

Giacomo Violardo