Articles
Conscience as the Voice of God, Part II
August 23, 2025
Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe
Conscience as the Voice of God, Part II
St. John Henry Newman teaches about the necessity of conscience working in an individual so that a move from a notional apprehension (intellectual belief) in God to a real apprehension (belief in the heart) in God can occur. Conscience is innate, or inborn, according to Newman, and he gives as an example a young child who has offended his parents, and in sorrow, seeks forgiveness from God for this offense. This child understands God’s presence before him (see previous post).
This example offered by St. John Henry Newman is recognizable and rings true. Newman avers, “How far this initial religious knowledge comes from without, and how far from within, how much is natural, how much implies a special divine aid which is above nature, we have no means of determining, nor is it necessary for my present purpose to determine.”
However, Newman warns that this first natural inclination towards God can either be nurtured and tended or it can be stifled. Sadly, St. John Henry allows that this genuine apprehension in a child, if not cherished, will become “almost undistinguishable from an inferential acceptance of the great truth, or may dwindle into a mere notion of their intellect.”
What must be done to preserve this nascent awareness in a person? He answers: “varied lessons, within and without them, which are brought home to them concerning that same God, One and Personal, by means of education, social intercourse, experience, and literature” which will expand, deepen, and be completed within the child.
If given a chance, then, this apprehension will grow and mature. With time, conscience will slowly become “. . . a connecting principle between the creature and his Creator.”
This nurtured awareness will lead a soul to begin recognizing God in more and more ways throughout his life. The thought of God will slowly become more natural. When this occurs, according to Newman, the person “. . . will find everything that happens tend to confirm them in the truths about Him which live in their imagination, varied and unearthly as those truths may be. Then they are brought into His presence as that of a Living Person, and are able to hold converse with Him, and that with a directness and simplicity, with a confidence and intimacy.” This is the real, living apprehension of God.
Newman concludes this description of conscience as the voice of God by reiterating,
“I have wished to trace the process by which the mind arrives, not only at a notional, but at an imaginative or real assent to the doctrine that there is One God, that is, an assent made with an apprehension, not only of what the words of the proposition mean, but of the object denoted by them . . . .Theology, properly and directly, deals with notional apprehension; religion with imaginative.”
Even with this important exposition, conscience has still not been *defined* but described. The recognition of the still small voice within as the voice of God is an integral step in the process of belief. But it is in Newman’s 1875 Letter to the Duke of Norfolk where his famous definition of conscience is given, quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 1778). He wrote:
“Conscience is a law of the mind; yet [Christians] would not grant that it is nothing more; I mean that it was not a dictate, nor conveyed the notion of responsibility, of duty, of a threat and a promise…. [Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”
Here Newman defines conscience’s role as a direct, internal representative of Christ. “Aboriginal” means “from the beginning” as he had described with his example of the child. Conscience then is a soul’s most elemental and immediate moral guide. It is judgment rather than an emotion or a feeling although it results in good or bad feelings of pleasure or pain depending on one’s actions. “It is a moral sense, and a sense of duty; a judgment of the reason and a magisterial dictate.” It must be properly formed and nurtured based on transcendent and objective norms.
Conscience prepares a soul to receive divine revelation and is the path to faith. Obedience to this “aboriginal vicar” in our lives will lead us to a deeper and more profound awareness of the living God and His will for us. Let us strive to cherish and continually nurture our consciences, so that Christ will be a familiar friend when at last we meet Him face to face.
