What is the Value of a Clear Conscience?

(The Conscience, Part 3)

You may be familiar with the old west humor where the gunslinger bellies up to the saloon bar after a gunfight and growls loudly, “Well, he needed a good killin’.” It is a somewhat humorous way of justifying the death of the other gunman lying in the street.

Whatever you may think of my silly illustration, focus on the word ‘justify.’ To justify something is to make it ‘right.’ Now, look a little closer. Why would anyone need to make something right?

I’m sure you see it. More accurately, justification is making something that is perceived to be wrong to appear to be right. The gunslinger justified murder by claiming that the other man needed (deserved) death.

It is likely that we have all tried to justify something, though not as serious as murder!

Have you ever lied, but felt like it was the right thing to do in your specific circumstances? You don’t generally lie. But on that occasion, it seemed necessary.

You might have justified your lie by telling yourself that it was for a good reason. If you had told the truth, a friend would have suffered in some way. Or, perhaps your lie saved you a significant amount of money. After all, that organization is well off (or corrupt or undeserving or abusive…) and they would never miss the small amount that you kept from them.

Whenever we justify a wrong we must understand that it is still wrong. The proof of our wrongdoing is our perceived need to justify ourselves. In other words, if it was not perceived to be wrong, then why would we feel the need to explain (justify) ourselves?

Why do you think it is so important for people to justify themselves?

The human conscience is a built in judge and jury that deals with moral issues. Whenever the conscience disapproves of an action it assigns guilt. In the case of lying, the conscience knows that lying is wrong. So, it acts as a jury and renders a ’guilty’ verdict. (We try to avoid guilt.)

Solomon made this observation:

People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry, but if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold; he will give all the goods of his house.
--Proverbs 6:30–31 (ESV)

The simple point is that people may be understanding or even find it easy to justify a moral wrong, but it is still wrong.

Justification is made to soothe the guilty conscience. It does not take away the wrong, but it explains the wrong so that can be said, “My conscience is clear.” The guilt has been removed by justification, but in reality, only the guilt feelings are removed. Yet, as with the hungry thief, true guilt remains. So, self-justification masks guilt by renaming wrong as right. For that reason, a clear conscience is worthless.

Some modern translations of the Bible refer to a clear conscience. However, in every one of those cases the Greek text describes the conscience as: good, clean, pure, blameless or perfect (complete), never clear.

A clear conscience is an unreliable moral judge. It could result from following a good conscience or justifying an evil conscience.

God is not interested in you having a clear conscience without first obtaining a clean conscience. He does not want you to justify your guilty conscience, but follow a pure conscience. 

Is your conscience clear or is it clean?

Mark Stinnett

October 28, 2019