Is there anything so wicked as a man trying
to silence his conscience? It is a
willful act that happens in stages: Bit by bit, incident by incident,
rationalization by rationalization, the voice of a man’s conscience can be
stifled—that still small voice within him eventually becomes fainter, until
his heart turns to stone and covers the voice within.
But even within a stone-heart, his
conscience knocks and pounds against the inner granite wall, making muffled
cries of protest.
How many murderers have used alcohol or
drugs to dull a stabbing conscience! How many corrupt business tycoons keep
their lives busy with the hum of constant shady wheeling and dealing to
distract them from a relentless nagging conscience? Occasionally, at an
unexpected moment, a whisper of conscience escapes from behind their stone
hearts and catches them off-guard—only to be quickly squelched.
Perhaps they tell themselves they wouldn’t
be so cruel if it weren’t for their own abusive upbringing. Perhaps they ease a twinge of shame by
telling themselves it was their own poverty as a child that drives them to
accumulate ill-gotten wealth so their own little ‘Johnny’ or ‘Suzy’ won’t have
to endure deprivation. Besides, the wily
old tycoon has done good things too. Remember that charity drive for crippled
children he hosted in 1972? It must have
helped dozens of kids!
As long as a man is still making excuses
for his bad behavior, we know his conscience is alive. There’s still hope for
his humanity. As long as he’s trying to hide his misdeeds, there is still
acknowledgement of good and evil and right from wrong. The fact that the evil
or misdeeds are hidden bears witness that he knows what is right.
Natural law
People of older times called this innate
sense of right from wrong the Law of Nature or Natural Law—a standard of decent
behavior that people instinctively understood beginning in early childhood. It
was innate and did not need to be taught.
C.S. Lewis began his marvelous book Mere Christianity, by addressing the Law
of Human Nature. He started with the
premise that people everywhere ascribe to a common standard of Objective truth,
a set of rules of fair play or morality to which they expect others to know about. You can tell this by the way children and
adults alike quarrel. Lewis wrote:
"They say things
like this: “How’d you like it if anyone did the same to you?” ─ “That’s my
seat, I was there first”─ “Leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm” ─ “Why
should you shove in first? ─ “Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of
mine ─ “Come on, you promised.”
Lewis noted that seldom does the other
party reply: “To hell with your standard.” No! The offender pretends that
there’s some special reason why “the person who took the seat first should not
keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of
orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his
promise.” In fact they both agree with a
common standard of decent behavior. The fact that they are quarrelling
indicates that they are trying to show the other person is in the wrong.
Otherwise, as Lewis wrote they would “fight like animals”.
C.S. Lewis originally put this idea forward
in the 1940s for a series of British radio broadcasts. Mere
Christianity was not published until 1952.
The idea of a natural moral law ingrained into humanity has weaved
throughout history. America
“The natural law
is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through
it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or
law at the creation.”
Brave New World
And yet I see rampant immorality with
little obvious guilt. People parade their sin in the streets! How can this
be? Abortion advocates successfully
secured abortion on demand, resulting in the deaths of millions. Biomedical
researchers are raising the prospect of experimentation on embryonic human
life. They advocate strip mining comatose patients for their organs. Euthanasia and assisted suicide proponents are gaining success in various jurisdictions.
People with serious progressive
disabilities (like me) are left to wonder what awaits us in the Brave New World
of the 21st Century?! Has
modern secular man been able to finally eradicate God’s natural law from the
human heart?[1]
The church teaches this is not possible.
“Even when
rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the
heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies.”
(CCC, No. 1958.)
And history teaches this too. Despots and
scoundrels, prevaricators and deniers of natural law have risen before. They
have their day in the limelight but the natural law they denied or twisted
still beckons good people back to the Truth.
The Church speaks the Truth to provide
moral clarity to humanity—even at the darkest moments of confusion. If this
generation rejects the principles of natural law and God’s Word, another
generation faithful the Word of God will rise to replace error with Truth. I
believe this with all my heart. I must!
Mark
[1][1]
For more reading on these subjects see Wesley J. Smith’s books (Culture of
Death, Encounter Books 2002) & Consumer’s
Guide to a Brave New World (Encounter Books, 2005).
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