What Is The Catholic Teaching Concerning Conscience. When Does Conscience Come Into Play In Making Moral Decisions.
One of the most important things in out lives is the ability to make decisions. They can range from small, insignificant choices like what to have for lunch or can be career decisions that could change the course of your life. But one thing is for certain. Many people take the liberty of making decisions for granted. In countries like Australia we have almost full decision making ability. Whereas in countries that are experiencing political or economic turmoil many people cannot make decisions because they are not allowed. So from this we can say that decision making is one of Gods most valuble gifts to us.
But decision making is not always a blessing. Some decisions may affect us emotionally. These are decisions that concern moral issues. Moral issues are all about the right thing to do, and the wrong thing to do. Moral decisions may be about whether you should get drunk with some friends or have sex with a person at a party. They are hard decisions to make and often you can be tempted by peer group pressure or similar pressures. Moral Decisions are a really good test of a persons willpower. But we have one gift to help us with decisions. It is our conscience. Our conscience is the voice that tells you the right thing to do i
The church sees the conscience as the voice of the true self and something that must be followed. They teach that the conscience is a valuble gift from God and you should follow it because it will not lead you astray. You can rely on your conscience to make the right decision. Not nessesarily the decision that is best for you. But the decicion that is morally right. But as anything else that is human. The conscience can go astray. There are situations where a conscience may become distorted through lack of development, lack of information, or fear of rules and regulations. An instance where a conscience would be distorted is a man who's wife is very sick and he must rush her to hospital in the early hours of the morning. She is very sick and the roads are deserted but he cannot bring himself to run a red light because he has a legalistic conscience. Even though it would not be morally wrong to run a red light and get to the hospital faster his conscience is stuck on the law and a breach of the law, even in an extreme circumstance is automatically twisted into something that is morally wrong.
These distortions of conscience are very wrong and could turn out dangerous. The best was to stop these kind of things is to inform our conscience. This can be done by learning about deci