(Notes taken while reading ON CONSCIENCE by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Ignatius
Conscience, the highest norm that man is to follow even in opposition to authority. If this were the case, it would mean that there is no truth, at least not in moral and religious matters.
One must follow a certain conscience or at least not act against it.
Some would argue that we should be grateful to God that He allows so many unbelievers in good conscience. For if their eyes were opened and they became believers, they would not be capable, in this world of ours, of bearing the burden of faith with all its moral obligations. But as it is, since they can go another way in good conscience, they can still reach salvation.
According to this view, faith would not make salvation easier but harder. Being happy would mean not being burdened with having to believe or having to submit to the moral yoke of the faith of the Catholic Church. The erroneous conscience, which makes life easier and marks a more human course, would then be the real grace, the normal way to salvation. Untruth, keeping truth at bay, would be better for man than truth.
If this were the state of affairs, how could faith give rise to joy? Who would have the courage to pass faith on others? Would it not be better to spare them the truth or even keep them from it?
Is conscience subjectivity’s protective shell, into which man can escape and hide from reality?
Conscience is a window through which one can see outward to that common truth that finds and sustains all, and so makes possible through the common recognition of truth the community of wants and responsibilities.
Conscience is man’s openness to the ground of his being, the power of perception for what is highest and most essential.
The liberal idea of conscience dispenses with truth. It becomes the justification of our subjectivity, which would not like to have itself called into question. Similarly, it becomes the justification for social conformity. As mediating value between the different subjectivities, social conformity is intended to make living together possible. The obligation to seek the truth terminates as do any doubts about the general inclination of society and what it has become accustomed to. Being convinced of oneself, as well as conforming to others, is sufficient. Man is reduced to his superficial conviction, and the less depth he has, the better for him.
The Nazi SS would be justified and we should seek them in heaven, since they carried out all their atrocities with fanatic conviction and complete certainty of conscience. Since they followed their (albeit mistaken) consciences, one would have to recognize their conduct as moral and as a result, should not doubt their eternal salvation.
That is the justifying power of the subjective conscience. Firm, subjective conviction and the lack of doubts and scruples that follow from it do not justify man.
To identify my conscience with the “I,” with its subjective certainty about itself and its moral behavior would make my conscience a mere reflection of the social surroundings and the opinions in circulation. On the other hand, this consciousness might also derive from a lack of self-criticism, a deficiency in listening to the depths of one’s own soul.
The identification of conscience with superficial consciousness, the reduction of man to his subjectivity, does not liberate but enslaves.
Whoever equates conscience with superficial conviction identifies conscience with a pseudo-rational certainty, a certainty that in fact has been woven from self-righteousness, conformity, and lethargy.
