Table Of Content1
THE STARRY HEAVENS ABOVE
THE MORAL LAW WITHIN
AND
CONSCIENCE
Lars Wilhelmsson
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CONTENTS
PREFACE 3-4
INTRODUCTION 5-9
CHAPTER 1 THE STARRY HEAVENS ABOVE 10-18
CHAPTER 2 THE MORAL LAW WITHIN 19-25
CHAPTER 3 THE CONSCIENCE 26-37
CHAPTER 4 THE CONSCIENCE IN WESTERN LITERATURE 38-42
CHAPTER 5 KINDS OF CONSCIENCE 43-47
CHAPTER 6 NATURE, THE MORAL LAW AND CONSCIENCE
AS EVIDENCE FOR GOD’S EXISTENCE 48-63
CHAPTER 7 CONSCIENCE AND MORALITY 64-67
CHAPTER 8 CONSCIENCE AND JUSTICE 68-74
CHAPTER 9 CONSCIENCE AND THE WORD OF GOD 75-78
CHAPTER 10 NATURE, THE MORAL LAW,
CONSCIENCE AND ETERNITY 79-85
CHAPTER 11 THE BAD NEWS AND THE GOOD NEWS 86-90
NOTES 91-100
BIBLIOGRAPHY 101-103
RECOMMENDED READING 104-105
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PREFACE
“Insomnia gets most of the blame that conscience deserves.”
--Anonymous
The ancients used to talk of a gold ring which had the appearance of any other ring, yet
differed in at least one quality—the wearer, should he brood over an evil thought or contemplate
an evil deed, would feel the ring pressing hard upon his finger.
Each of us has within us a thing still more wonderful—something that registers the
approach of moral danger, or the transgression of known standards of morality. This is
conscience.
The word “conscience,” like conscientiousness, faithfulness, etc., has fallen on hard
times. After having listened to sermons for over 50 years, I can only recall one that addressed
this topic.
When the word has come up, it has usually been mentioned in a negative way.
Immediately the word guilt comes to mind and the many words associated with it such as
offense, failure, mistake, wrong, sin, whether real or imagined. It is also associated with negative
feelings such as shame, remorse, anguish, torment, self-condemnation, self-unforgiveness, self-
judgment and in extreme cases, severe depression.
Like so many others, when I was young I was told to let my conscience be my guide. As I
grew older such a statement didn’t seem to make sense since people who claimed to follow that
counsel, thought and said things and acted in ways that seemed anything but right.
Part of the problem is the confusion that surrounds this issue. Some of the questions that
come to mind are:
If we all have a conscience, how come we act so differently?
If we all have a conscience, how come some are able to commit heinous crimes
and sleep like a baby while others turn and toss because of seemingly
insignificant thoughts, words and deeds?
What is the difference between true guilt and false guilt?
What things can potentially harm the conscience?
What is the difference between a seared conscience and an overactive conscience?
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What is the answer to the individual who is influenced by his own inner impulses and
perceptions instead of being influenced by the Holy Spirit and by the tenets of God’s
Word?
Part of the problem is that we fail to distinguish between the moral law and the
conscience. Most only refer to one of those categories and lump in the other.
To what extent is one’s conscience “the voice of God?” To what extent does it have
grounding in objective moral norms? Or, is it autonomous? If the latter is so, can it claim a moral
basis equivalent to one who believes his conscience is based on the will of God? Conscience has
always based its claim on an authority outside the self, sitting in judgment on the self.
It is the purpose of the book to help people understand the place the starry heavens above
(creation), the moral law within and conscience play in our lives so we can grow in our relation
to God and others.
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“I sat alone with my conscience
In a place where time has ceased,
And I thought of my former living
In the land where the years increased.
The ghost of forgotten actions
Came floating before my sight,
And things that I thought were dead things
Were alive with a terrible might.
And I know of the future judgment,
How dreadful so o’er it be,
To sit alone with my conscience
Will be judgment enough for me.”
--William Stubbs, “Castles in the Air”
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INTRODUCTION
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1
“Conscience is the perfect interpreter of life.”
--Karl Barth
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“Reason deceives us often; conscience never.”
--Rousseau
“The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways.
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By a change of life or by a change of conscience.”
--Leo Tolstoy
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“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
--Mark Twain
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“A clear conscience is a good pillow.”
--American Proverb
A man consulted a doctor, "I've been misbehaving, Doc, and my conscience is troubling
me," he complained. "And you want something that will strengthen your willpower?" asked the
doctor. "Well, no," said the fellow. "I was thinking of something that would weaken my
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conscience."
Similarly, a man wrote the following letter to the IRS: “I have been unable to sleep
knowing that I have cheated on my income tax. I understated my taxable income and have
enclosed a check for $200.00. If I still can’t sleep, I will send the rest.”
Our modern era rushes to anesthetize whatever we find uncomfortable. The religious
notion of a sense of guilt has been replaced by a psychologized culture where understanding is
the answer no matter how deep the problem may be. The psychologist’s couch has replaced the
minister’s confessional. Our courts are filled with lawyers who recommend a "not guilty" plea no
matter what the truth happens to be. Is it any wonder that religious conversion is not only no
longer needed but regarded as a worn-out and unwanted phenomenon?
I still remember hearing and seeing on television Bishop Fulton Sheen's opening line
several decades ago: "Thank God for pain! Thank God for guilt!"
Then he eloquently explained that because man is composed of body and soul, he is a
composite of material and spiritual components. He went on to point out that God in His infinite
wisdom designed into our nature an alert system in each component and that if it were not for
the sense of pain physically, we would die of undetected and thus untreated illness and that if it
were it not for the sense of guilt, we would die in our sins, unrecognized and thus unrepentant.
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Germaine De Stael accurately pointed out,
“The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so
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clear that it is impossible to mistake it.” (Emphasis added)
A strange affair took place during WWII which became known as “The Hardy Case.”
Hardy was a member of the French Underground, and toward the end of the war it was suspected
that he was the man who had been betraying his comrades to the Gestapo. When the war was
over, he was brought to trial. But he had a very talented lawyer who managed to create so much
doubt in the minds of the jury that his client was acquitted. Then after the trial was over, Hardy
admitted that he was guilty. When asked why he had confessed after he had been declared
innocent, he answered,
“I couldn’t live a lie forever.”
The feeling of guilt, the capacity to recognize guilt, belongs essentially to our spiritual
make-up and the person who is numb to guilt, who is without remorse, is spiritually ill. This sad
condition is often the result of sinful attitudes and habits. What sin does to one's soul AIDS does
to one's body in that it attacks the built-in recovery system itself. Conscience and guilt are
debilitated or suppressed by sin because sin creates a proclivity to sin and engenders vice by
repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations which cloud conscience and
corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil. Thus sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce
itself taking foothold in a person’s life.
The impressionate painter Vincent van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother Theo in 1878
that
"one must never let the fire in one's soul die, for the time will inevitably come
when it will be needed. And he who chooses poverty for himself and loves it
possesses a great treasure and will hear the voice of his conscience address
him every more clearly. He who hears that voice, which is God's greatest gift,
in his innermost being and follows it, finds in it a friend at last, and he is
never alone! . . . That is what all great men have acknowledged in their works, all
those who have thought a little more deeply and searched and worked and loved
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a little more than the rest, who have plumbed the depths of the sea of life."
The 1957 Ingmar Bergman’s film Seventh Seal portrays the journey of a medieval knight
(Max von Sydow) returning disillusioned from the crusades and anxiously asking, "What is
going to happen to those of us who want to believe, but aren't able to?" Across a plague-ridden
landscape, he undertakes a game of chess with the personification of Death until he can perform
one meaningful altruistic act of conscience overturning the chess board to distract Death long
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enough for a family of jugglers to escape in their wagon.
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ACKNOWLEDGED OVERWHELMINGLY
The concept of some notion of conscience is acknowledged overwhelmingly by all
societies throughout human history. The quotations in this treatise reflect the broad spectrum of
peoples with their various backgrounds who recognize the voice of conscience.
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with
reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
—United Nations, Universal Declaration on Human Rights Article 1
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right
includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in
community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in
teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
—United Nations, Universal Declaration on Human Rights Article 18
“Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This
right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and
freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to
manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.”
—United Nations, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 18.1
Immanuel Kant, a central figure of the Age of Enlightenment, likewise claimed that two
things filled his mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe:
"the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”10
This statement may be Kant’s most famous passage and this statement in his first
sentence was even inscribed on his tombstone. Kant concluded his Critique of Practical Reason
with this passage in 1788 and the appearance of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 marked the
beginning of modern philosophy. These texts are read on all continents, and his influence
continues to be global.
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CHAPTER 1 THE STARRY HEAVENS ABOVE
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