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Gaudium Et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae on Conscience: a Forgotten Concept of Vatican II?

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Gaudium Et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae on Conscience: a Forgotten Concept of Vatican II? Louvain Studies 40 (2017): 153-169 doi: 10.2143/LS.40.2.3220912 © 2017 by Louvain Studies, all rights reserved Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae on Conscience: a Forgotten Concept of Vatican II? Michael G. Lawler and Todd A. Salzman Abstract. — This paper explores the authority and inviolability of conscience in Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae. It then highlights three tensions in the texts, two models on the nature of conscience that result from these tensions, and argues that since Vatican II, during the pontificates of Popes John Paul II and ­Benedict XVI, tradition’s claims on the inviolability of a well-formed conscience have been largely forgotten and, at times, even violated. It also proposes steps, which Pope Francis has initiated, that must be taken to regain the authority and inviolability of conscience and return it to its proper place in the Catholic tradition. Introduction Already in the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas established the authority and inviolability of conscience. “Anyone upon whom the eccle- siastical authorities, in ignorance of the true facts, impose a demand that offends against his clear conscience, should perish in excommunication rather than violate his conscience.”1 He goes further and insists that the dictate of a mistaken conscience must be followed and that to act against such a dictate is immoral and sinful.2 Seven hundred years after Aquinas, Gaudium et Spes issued a clarion cry with respect to conscience. ­“Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of man. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depth. In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and ­neighbor” (GS 16). Dignitatis Humanae went further to assert the inviolability of conscience. “In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience faithfully, in order that he may come to God for whom he was created. It follows that he is not to be forced to act contrary to his conscience. 1. Thomas Aquinas, In IV Sent., dist. 38, q. 2, art. 4. 2. Id., Summa Theologiae, I-II, 19, 5. Henceforth cited as ST. 154 MichaEl G. laWlER & tOdd a. salZMaN Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious” (DH 3). Despite these affirmations of the authority of conscience, theological and pastoral debates continue over the nature of conscience and its inviolability. These are due, at least in part, to tensions within the documents. In this essay, we begin with affirmations in Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae on the nature of conscience and its inviolability. We then explore three tensions in the texts; two models on the nature of conscience that result from these tensions; and how these models are reflected in the writings of Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. I. Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae on Conscience: Consensus Several points are evident from the statements in Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae on the nature and inviolability of conscience. First, conscience is sacred; it is a gift from God (GS 16). Second, it is an intrinsic part of the human person (GS 16). Third, following one’s con- science on moral and religious matters facilitates human dignity; violating­ one’s conscience on moral and religious matters frustrates human dignity (GS 16; DH 3). Fourth, one must never be forced to act against one’s conscience; such force is a fundamental violation of conscience and of human dignity (DH 3). Fifth, the authority granted to conscience pre- sumes that one’s conscience is well-informed (GS 16). Though there is consensus on many aspects of the nature of conscience and its inviolability­ in Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae, those who have interpreted the documents in the post-Conciliar period note that there are tensions in the documents that lead to two different models on the nature of conscience. To those tensions we now turn. II. Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae on Conscience: Tensions It is common knowledge that there is a general tension in the documents of the Second Vatican Council represented by differing ideological and theological perspectives. James Gaffney comments that the term ‘­conscience’ in the documents is used “in a combination of senses which not even the most benign exegetical subtlety can rescue from gaUdiUm Et spEs aNd digNitatis hUmaNaE 155 incoherence.”3 This incoherence is reflected in various tensions with respect to the nature of conscience and its inviolability. Two Levels of Conscience Perhaps the most basic tension in the documents is on the nature of conscience itself. Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae describe two levels of conscience. To explore these two levels we return to Aquinas, where we see immediately that conscience is related to reason, and its understanding is situated in Aquinas’ anthropology. Closely following Aristotle, he considers the human person to be a unitary being, endowed with a body and a rational soul that vivifies it. Reason distinguishes humans from all other animals, and the rational soul has two powers, intellect and will, intimately related and involved in the process of knowledge. All knowledge begins with experience4 and proceeds through understanding, judgment, decision, and action. Conscience is the ­intellectual act of practical judgment that something is right or wrong, moral or immoral, to be done or not done. It binds us to do or not to do some action and, when an action has been done, “conscience is said to accuse or worry us if what has occurred is found to be out of accord with the knowledge by which it was tested, and to defend or excuse us if what has occurred is found to have turned out to be in accord with that knowledge.”5 Conscience is, just as Robert Smith defines it, “the act of practical judgment on a particular moral issue … that commands us to do this or not to do that.”6 Conscience comes at the end of a rational process which is a process of experience, understanding, judgment, and decision. This process includes an innate natural grasp of moral principles that Aquinas calls synderesis. “Though the habits which inform conscience are many,” he argues, “nevertheless they all take effect through one chief habit, the grasp of principles called synderesis.”7 Aquinas never makes these ­principles clear anywhere because, as Jean Porter correctly argues, his 3. James Gaffney, Matters of Faith and Morals (London: Sheed & Ward, 1987), 115-133. 4. See ST I, 79, 2. For an excellent summary, see Kenneth L. Schmitz, “St. Thomas and the Appeal to Experience,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological ­ Society of America 47 (1992): 1-20. 5. Ibid. 6. Robert J. Smith, Conscience and Catholicism: The Nature and Function of ­Conscience in Contemporary Roman Catholic Theology (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998), 12. 7. ST I, 79, 13. 156 MichaEl G. laWlER & tOdd a. salZMaN “general theory of goodness requires him to hold that the first principle of practical reasoning is self-evident to all.”8 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in a 1991 speech, interpreted the medieval tradition as offering two levels to the concept of conscience, synteresis (which he suggests is better rendered as anamnesis) and conscience. Synteresis or anamnesis is “an inner ­repugnance to evil and an attraction to the good. The act of con- science applies this basic knowledge to the particular situation.”9 To make a practical judgment of conscience, then, involves both a grasp of the first principles of practical reason (synderesis/synteresis) and a gathering of evidence,­ a conscious weighing and understanding of the evidence and its implications, and finally making as honest a judgment as possible that this action is to be done and that action is not. A moral action is one that comes as the right outcome of such a process and an immoral action is one that comes as the wrong outcome of such a process. It is com- monplace theologically to insist that, in order to be right and moral, conscience must be informed; that formation is precisely the process we have just outlined. The failure to distinguish between the two levels of conscience and the ambiguity on what constitutes a well-informed ­conscience are central questions that divide interpreters of Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae on the nature of conscience and its ­inviolability. The two levels of conscience, namely, synderesis and the process leading to practical judgment, Joseph Fuchs names the subject-orientation and the object-orientation of conscience respectively. Conscience as sub- ject-orientation is “having inner knowledge of the moral goodness of the Christian, and as standing before God, and Christ, and in the Holy Spirit.”10 This is where God’s voice echoes in the depths of the human heart (GS 16), “the highest norm of human life” (DH 3), and draws a person to the absolute where the first principles of practical reason are self-evident in the very nature of that moral knowledge, “summoning him to love good and avoid evil” (GS 16); this is the “upright norm of one’s own conscience” (GS 26). Conscience as subject orientation is the ontological affirmation of the intrinsic goodness of the human person created in the image and likeness of God and an invitation to enter into profound relationship with God and neighbor (GS 16). 8. Jean Porter, The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), 85-86. 9. Joseph Ratzinger, “Conscience and Truth,” http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/ ratzcons.htm, 8. This and all other URLs cited herein were accessed 25/11/2015.
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