Written on our hearts.
By Craig Manners
23rd April 2016
Romans 2:14-15 – “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.”
The human conscience is a mind-boggling thing to think about. There is no doubt that it is a real thing. It seems to be inside us but we can't locate it. It seems to be written on our hearts so to speak. As conscience is common to all humanity so also is a thing called "morality".
We mostly all know when something is wrong, don't we! Things like murder, lying, stealing, adultery. It is possible however to dull or appease our consciences. For example a community of pirates might seem to have succeeded in normalizing stealing, lying and killing. Yet, deep down that conscience is still there.
Throughout human history people have been doing the wrong thing and then suffering the burdensome pressure applied by this amazing thing called conscience. It can drive some people nuts, whether people are taught specific rules or no rules. It is something which if it could be turned off, or removed by surgery, many people probably would try.
However, think about what sort of world we would have if we did somehow find a way to remove it. The world we live in would be chaos, and not just the sort of chaos we have seen during some periods of human history, but chaos unlike anything we have seen or could ever imagine.
One of the benefits of the human conscience in warning us is that the behaviour it warns against is most often very harmful to us, and could even enslave us in tormenting bondage for life. So it is very much a loving mechanism rather than something which is negative. Like a loving parent protecting their children from impending harm. Yet we often treat it as an enemy.
The dangers in promoting behaviour which is negative and harmful are well documented throughout human history. The primary human history book, the first book ever published, the world's biggest selling and most widely translated book, the Bible, among others, makes it clear what has followed after periods of unrestrained bad behaviour. In fact the Bible is in many ways a sort of guidebook to a healthy conscience. It lovingly highlights the positive behaviours and lifestyles which can result in a less-active conscience.
Bad behaviour is a form of bondage. Jesus Christ, in John 8:34-36 said, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
In verse 32 He says, "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Our conscience, and the guidebook so widely available to everyone, can often help us know the truth. Bending the truth, or trying to normalize falsehood as truth, or desensitizing people to accept bad behaviour as being good, will only lead people into bondage or slavery.
The fact that we cannot remove our consciences (surgeons cannot even pinpoint where it is inside us) has not stopped humans from at least trying to dull it or appease it. This has been attempted through various means and methods, from making laws which legalize bad behavior (such as laws which say it is okay to take human life at certain ages of their lives, laws which confuse children about relationships, truth and gender, laws enforcing immorality peddling school indoctrination programs), taking drugs or drinking alcohol which may have a temporary dulling effect on our conscience, or by trying to desensitize society and normalize bad behavior and pretend that it is now no longer bad behavior.
The latter one is all about trying to convince the masses that something which is wrong is somehow now right, was bad but is now good, abnormal but is now normal, unnatural but is now natural, unhealthy but is now healthy. The methods are specific and have been studied and implemented in times past by people trying to spread totalitarian ideologies such as Marxism (socialism, communism), or by groups of people trying to appease their consciences by having as many people as possible either join in their conscience awakening bad behavior or publicly affirm that bad behavior as now being good behavior and acceptable in society.
No matter what method of appeasement is attempted, or how much of it, or how widespread or how forcefully the normalization of such behaviour is imposed on a society, the reality persists, like unrelenting rain persists in a monsoonal rainy season, the human conscience cannot be completely silenced. You eventually wake up after the attempt and your burden is just heavier. The law may try to convince you that what you have done is ok. All your friends may be doing it. The media may have normalized it. But still, your conscience is telling you something very different!
A fog spreads out over a city in the morning and clouds ones vision, but it will at some stage move on and the sky will be clear. Likewise, times of universal deceit, where truth is denied, wrong is called right, immorality called morality, bad called good and tried to be changed by human legal decree, inevitably move through the fog of history and are seen by generations to come as periods of darkness where rational sanity was clouded over by a fog of (hopefully temporary) insanity.
Sadly, during such times, the pain and suffering from such widespread bad behavior does not only affect the one behaving that way but the consequences are spread much wider, impacting whole societies, and most tragically it is often the children who suffer the most.
One of the legitimate roles of human government is to restrain bad behavior in a society. Hence we have and need laws, police, courts, judges, prisons. When government starts changing laws to try to normalize things which are destructive, immoral, harmful to the weak and the young, they are doing the opposite of what they should be doing. Instead of restraining bad behavior they are suddenly promoting it, teaching it to the youth of that society, and then sinking deeper into an abyss of lies and immorality as the structures and resources of that government mobilize to support the wrong laws they made/changed.
Conscience will remain however, even during these times of attempted universal suppression, and when we awake from our induced moral drowsiness, when the fog has lifted and we can see clearly again as a society, we will feel worse not better, the burden will be heavier not lighter, and history will record the names of the leaders who imposed such deception upon us. It will also record the names of those who remained silent during such times and allowed such leaders a free reign to spread such deceit.
“People don’t reform themselves unless they’re forced to . . .Either their conscience strikes them, they’re driven to repentance out of gratitude for what God has done in their lives and they start doing the right thing, or the law gets them. Free societies depend on that work of the conscience.” Charles Colson.
Wonderfully though, as depressing as things may get in our fallen world, God has acted to defeat the darkness, suffering, brokenness and hopelessness prevalent around the world (if you really think we are good and the world is good, just turn on your TV). Light has entered the world and overcome the darkness. Find out more HERE.
By Craig Manners
23rd April 2016
Romans 2:14-15 – “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.”
The human conscience is a mind-boggling thing to think about. There is no doubt that it is a real thing. It seems to be inside us but we can't locate it. It seems to be written on our hearts so to speak. As conscience is common to all humanity so also is a thing called "morality".
We mostly all know when something is wrong, don't we! Things like murder, lying, stealing, adultery. It is possible however to dull or appease our consciences. For example a community of pirates might seem to have succeeded in normalizing stealing, lying and killing. Yet, deep down that conscience is still there.
Throughout human history people have been doing the wrong thing and then suffering the burdensome pressure applied by this amazing thing called conscience. It can drive some people nuts, whether people are taught specific rules or no rules. It is something which if it could be turned off, or removed by surgery, many people probably would try.
However, think about what sort of world we would have if we did somehow find a way to remove it. The world we live in would be chaos, and not just the sort of chaos we have seen during some periods of human history, but chaos unlike anything we have seen or could ever imagine.
One of the benefits of the human conscience in warning us is that the behaviour it warns against is most often very harmful to us, and could even enslave us in tormenting bondage for life. So it is very much a loving mechanism rather than something which is negative. Like a loving parent protecting their children from impending harm. Yet we often treat it as an enemy.
The dangers in promoting behaviour which is negative and harmful are well documented throughout human history. The primary human history book, the first book ever published, the world's biggest selling and most widely translated book, the Bible, among others, makes it clear what has followed after periods of unrestrained bad behaviour. In fact the Bible is in many ways a sort of guidebook to a healthy conscience. It lovingly highlights the positive behaviours and lifestyles which can result in a less-active conscience.
Bad behaviour is a form of bondage. Jesus Christ, in John 8:34-36 said, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
In verse 32 He says, "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Our conscience, and the guidebook so widely available to everyone, can often help us know the truth. Bending the truth, or trying to normalize falsehood as truth, or desensitizing people to accept bad behaviour as being good, will only lead people into bondage or slavery.
The fact that we cannot remove our consciences (surgeons cannot even pinpoint where it is inside us) has not stopped humans from at least trying to dull it or appease it. This has been attempted through various means and methods, from making laws which legalize bad behavior (such as laws which say it is okay to take human life at certain ages of their lives, laws which confuse children about relationships, truth and gender, laws enforcing immorality peddling school indoctrination programs), taking drugs or drinking alcohol which may have a temporary dulling effect on our conscience, or by trying to desensitize society and normalize bad behavior and pretend that it is now no longer bad behavior.
The latter one is all about trying to convince the masses that something which is wrong is somehow now right, was bad but is now good, abnormal but is now normal, unnatural but is now natural, unhealthy but is now healthy. The methods are specific and have been studied and implemented in times past by people trying to spread totalitarian ideologies such as Marxism (socialism, communism), or by groups of people trying to appease their consciences by having as many people as possible either join in their conscience awakening bad behavior or publicly affirm that bad behavior as now being good behavior and acceptable in society.
No matter what method of appeasement is attempted, or how much of it, or how widespread or how forcefully the normalization of such behaviour is imposed on a society, the reality persists, like unrelenting rain persists in a monsoonal rainy season, the human conscience cannot be completely silenced. You eventually wake up after the attempt and your burden is just heavier. The law may try to convince you that what you have done is ok. All your friends may be doing it. The media may have normalized it. But still, your conscience is telling you something very different!
A fog spreads out over a city in the morning and clouds ones vision, but it will at some stage move on and the sky will be clear. Likewise, times of universal deceit, where truth is denied, wrong is called right, immorality called morality, bad called good and tried to be changed by human legal decree, inevitably move through the fog of history and are seen by generations to come as periods of darkness where rational sanity was clouded over by a fog of (hopefully temporary) insanity.
Sadly, during such times, the pain and suffering from such widespread bad behavior does not only affect the one behaving that way but the consequences are spread much wider, impacting whole societies, and most tragically it is often the children who suffer the most.
One of the legitimate roles of human government is to restrain bad behavior in a society. Hence we have and need laws, police, courts, judges, prisons. When government starts changing laws to try to normalize things which are destructive, immoral, harmful to the weak and the young, they are doing the opposite of what they should be doing. Instead of restraining bad behavior they are suddenly promoting it, teaching it to the youth of that society, and then sinking deeper into an abyss of lies and immorality as the structures and resources of that government mobilize to support the wrong laws they made/changed.
Conscience will remain however, even during these times of attempted universal suppression, and when we awake from our induced moral drowsiness, when the fog has lifted and we can see clearly again as a society, we will feel worse not better, the burden will be heavier not lighter, and history will record the names of the leaders who imposed such deception upon us. It will also record the names of those who remained silent during such times and allowed such leaders a free reign to spread such deceit.
“People don’t reform themselves unless they’re forced to . . .Either their conscience strikes them, they’re driven to repentance out of gratitude for what God has done in their lives and they start doing the right thing, or the law gets them. Free societies depend on that work of the conscience.” Charles Colson.
Wonderfully though, as depressing as things may get in our fallen world, God has acted to defeat the darkness, suffering, brokenness and hopelessness prevalent around the world (if you really think we are good and the world is good, just turn on your TV). Light has entered the world and overcome the darkness. Find out more HERE.