Well-formed conscience

[Ethel]

Regarding the Catechism of the Catholic Church, passeges 1776 to 1802, the section on conscience:

I've read this before, and thought I understood it, but another thread showed me my understanding was incomplete.

My main question is, what is one supposed to do in the period when conscience is still not entirely well-formed?

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgement of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgements about acts to be performed or already committed.

Hopefully I did the quoting right this time

As I understand it, this means that, if we find ourselves in moral disagreement with the church due to an ignorant moral conscience or, though far less likely, an example of fallibility in a fallible church teaching, we have to do what we believe is right, even though we disagree with the church. Obviously, we should try to correct a conscience that we suspect to be wrong. Also, an excerpt from under 1792:

. . . rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching . . . these can be at the source of errors of judgement in moral conduct.

Is this trying to state that disagreeing with the church is always wrong and the Church's teachings & authority are *always* right? And how does this go with the first passage I quoted?

I'm asking a lot of questions on OBOB. Well, too bad - getting more questions is your reward for giving good answers - lucky you! And thanks in advance for the insights I know I'll get from everyone.

 

[geocajun]

Hi Ethel

Regarding the Catechism of the Catholic Church, passeges 1776 to 1802, the section on conscience:
My main question is, what is one supposed to do in the period when conscience is still not entirely well-formed?

Well, they must use their conscience to the best of their ability.
Lets distinguish between two terms to set our foundation:

-Prudence is the virtue [of the intellect] by which we choose how to act.
-Conscience is the faculty by which we judge the moral quality of the act.

Thus when one first makes a choice, they then judge the choice for moral quality before, during, and after an action.

I am not sure we ever completely finish forming our conscience, so in a sense, we are all just doing the best we can to employ good prudence and moral judgement on our actions and some folks have a more raw conscience than others.

As I understand it, this means that, if we find ourselves in moral disagreement with the church due to an ignorant moral conscience or, though far less likely, an example of fallibility in a fallible church teaching, we have to do what we believe is right, even though we disagree with the church. Obviously, we should try to correct a conscience that we suspect to be wrong. Also, an excerpt from under 1792:

This is true, but only when our conscience is certain and this does not apply when our conscience is unclear on an action. When we are unable to properly judge the quality of our action, prudence should dictate that we must seek out a moral authority (the Church).

. . . rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching . . . these can be at the source of errors of judgement in moral conduct.

Is this trying to state that disagreeing with the church is always wrong and the Church's teachings & authority are *always* right? And how does this go with the first passage I quoted?

Remember first that "moral judgement" is referring to judging the right and wrong of an action and the Church does speak authoritatively on matters of faith and morals. When the Church gives us a moral teaching and we use prudence and choose to act against it, and our Conscience does not jump out at us and tell us its wrong, then we have in fact made an "erroneous judgement" which just so happens to be the heading of the paragraph you quote
The judgement is objectively erroneous, but the person with the malformed conscience does not realize that because of the malformed conscience.
The person has a moral obligation to #1 follow their conscience #2 work to correct their errors and properly form their conscience.

I'm asking a lot of questions on OBOB. Well, too bad - getting more questions is your reward for giving good answers - lucky you! And thanks in advance for the insights I know I'll get from everyone.

Keep them coming!

 

[geocajun]

also worth mentioning, that before we go to confession the "examination of conscience" is where we examine each time we acted against our conscience and confess this, and we should also search carefully to find the erroneous judgements and confess those as well as as to help improve our moral formation and avoid these sins in the future.

 

[LongingForLight]

Thanks, geocajun! Esp. the "examination of conscience" bit - I'm still relearning how to go to Confession. I've just added looking up details on that to my list of to-do's (and to-ask's, the list of things I'm going to ask here - man, I'm having a great time taking advantage of the knowledge here! (hopefully I'll be able to contribute something myself as time passes))

 

[geocajun]

Thanks, geocajun! Esp. the "examination of conscience" bit - I'm still relearning how to go to Confession. I've just added looking up details on that to my list of to-do's (and to-ask's, the list of things I'm going to ask here - man, I'm having a great time taking advantage of the knowledge here! (hopefully I'll be able to contribute something myself as time passes))

No problem, your asking great questions!