Conscience or Consciousness?

[Andrewn]

The word "syneidēsis" is usually translated "conscience." But my understanding is that the Greek word can also mean "consciousness." According to Oxford Dictionaries:

Conscience is "An inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior."

Consciousness is "The state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings.

• 1.1 The awareness or perception of something by a person.
  1.2 The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world."

Heb 9:9 This is a symbol of the present time, during which the gifts and sacrifices that are offered are unable to cleanse the conscience of the worshiper.

Heb 9:14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from acts that lead to death so that we may worship the living God.

Heb 10:2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.

Heb 10:22 let us approach with sincerity of heart and the full assurance of faith, with hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and bodies washed in pure water.

Heb 13:18 Pray for us. We are sure that our own conscience is clear, and our desire is to act honorably in everything we do.

In these 5 verses, "syneidēsis" is translated "consciousness" only once. But it appears to me that it means "consciousness" in the other 4 verses as well. What do you think?

 

[ArmyMatt]

The word "syneidēsis" is usually translated "conscience." But my understanding is that the Greek word can also mean "consciousness." According to Oxford Dictionaries:

Conscience is "An inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior."

Consciousness is "The state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings.

• 1.1 The awareness or perception of something by a person.
  1.2 The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world."

Heb 9:9 This is a symbol of the present time, during which the gifts and sacrifices that are offered are unable to cleanse the conscience of the worshiper.

Heb 9:14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from acts that lead to death so that we may worship the living God.

Heb 10:2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.

Heb 10:22 let us approach with sincerity of heart and the full assurance of faith, with hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and bodies washed in pure water.

Heb 13:18 Pray for us. We are sure that our own conscience is clear, and our desire is to act honorably in everything we do.

In these 5 verses, "syneidēsis" is translated "consciousness" only once. But it appears to me that it means "consciousness" in the other 4 verses as well. What do you think?

it’s probably both and more, kinda like how Logos means more than Word.

 

[Leaf473]

The word "syneidēsis" is usually translated "conscience." But my understanding is that the Greek word can also mean "consciousness." According to Oxford Dictionaries:

Conscience is "An inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior."

Consciousness is "The state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings.

• 1.1 The awareness or perception of something by a person.
  1.2 The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world."

Heb 9:9 This is a symbol of the present time, during which the gifts and sacrifices that are offered are unable to cleanse the conscience of the worshiper.

Heb 9:14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from acts that lead to death so that we may worship the living God.

Heb 10:2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.

Heb 10:22 let us approach with sincerity of heart and the full assurance of faith, with hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and bodies washed in pure water.

Heb 13:18 Pray for us. We are sure that our own conscience is clear, and our desire is to act honorably in everything we do.

In these 5 verses, "syneidēsis" is translated "consciousness" only once. But it appears to me that it means "consciousness" in the other 4 verses as well. What do you think?

Since "awareness" is a possible definition, it seems like that would work in those passages as well. Not fully or completely, but that's how it is with translation imo.

 

[rusmeister]

The words diverge in other languages as well, but their roots DO mean essentially the same thing (knowledge that (ought to be) common). I can say for certain that, centuries ago, both English and Russian speakers decided to use the two different forms, one for awareness of the physical world around you, and the other for the awareness of the moral sense.

 

[Andrewn]

The words diverge in other languages as well, but their roots DO mean essentially the same thing

The American Heritage Dictionary mentions that in English the word "conscience" used to mean "consciousness" but that usage is obsolete.

The American Heritage Dictionary entry: conscience

 

[Johnny Ross]

The medieval tradition detected two levels to Conscience and expressed them with the concepts of syndresis & conscientia. The word synderesis (synteresis) came into the medieval tradition of conscience from the stoic doctrine of the microcosm. It remained unclear in its exact meaning and for this reason became a hindrance to a careful development of this essential aspect of the whole question of conscience.
Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) proposed using the Platonic concept of "Anamnesis" instead of synderesis because "It is not only linguistically clearer and philosophically deeper and purer, but anamnesis above all also harmonizes with key motifs of biblical thought and the anthropology derived therefrom." (Conscience and Truth)
In this sense, the good Cardinal Ratzinger continues, we are to take the meaning of Anamnesis (Conscience) as St Paul expressed in Romans 2:14ff, “When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness” (Ibid.)
For me personally, this understanding of conscience has opened up a vast universe to explore since conscience becomes tied into a kind of timeless Sacred Memory which is found through out scripture, the philokalia, the liturgy and the Church.

 

[Andrewn]

In this sense, the good Cardinal Ratzinger continues, we are to take the meaning of Anamnesis (Conscience) as St Paul expressed in Romans 2:14ff, “When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness” (Ibid.)

The meaning of the "conscience" that we are taught in psychology: "The conscience helps us store information about actions that society considers 'bad' and can make us feel guilty."

But St Paul's definition goes beyond this to predate by millennia Carl Jung's "Collective Superego." According to Jung, we carry the memories of our ancestors in our subconscious. It seems that all these concepts come into play in the Hebrews verses quoted in the OP.

 

[rusmeister]

The meaning of the "conscience" that we are taught in psychology: "The conscience helps us store information about actions that society considers 'bad' and can make us feel guilty."

But St Paul's definition goes beyond this to predate by millennia Carl Jung's "Collective Superego." According to Jung, we carry the memories of our ancestors in our subconscious. It seems that all these concepts come into play in the Hebrews verses quoted in the OP.

The definition they gave you is the first hint that psychology is a pseudo-science, where real knowledge is mixed up with falsehood. The attempt to express knowledge from God in our heart in materialist terms is blatant.
And that kind of thinking wasn't common among educated people until the earlier philosophers led them wrong, step by step. From Aquinas, thinking that the mystical could be rationalized and understood by human reason, to Descartes predicating essence on thought, to the general rejection by the Western philosophers of noetic knowledge and knowing truth by revelation, in their reliance entirely on reason and experience, culminating in Nietzsche and the resulting 3rd Reich, they all went wrong. As they turned ever more infrequently to Christ, the Church, Holy Scripture, and the fathers and saints, they fell further and further from the truth. They fumble around, sensing truth, yet refusing to admit that it is a Person who would give them salvific imperatives. And no, I am not saying that they were all irreligious, though the tendency was certainly that way, and the world praised them and promotes them to us because they really do offer alternative ideas to the Truth. The very fact that they are taught in universities controlled by the prince of this world ought to be a hint, pretty much the same reason Chesterton, who surpassed all of them, got excluded by those same gatekeepers.