St. Thomas More said that when leaders abandon their personal conscience for public duties, it leads to chaos. There are two basic obligations regarding conscience: follow your conscience and form your conscience. We must follow our conscience, which is our ability to judge right from wrong, because it is a law written on our hearts by God. However, no one's conscience is perfectly formed, so we must also take steps to form our conscience by learning moral norms to avoid ignorance or error. Jesus showed how to obey conscience by healing on the Sabbath, as healing others was more important than a superficial interpretation of the law.

1. Following and Forming Our
Conscience/Forming a Christian
Conscience/Toward a Mature
Christian Conscience
By Pejay Padrigon

2. “I think that when statesmen forsake their own
private conscience for the sake of their public duties
they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”
St. Thomas More

3. a) What does St.Thomas More say about the importance of
following one’s conscience? Explain.
b) What advertising slogans do you know emphasize the
value of being true to oneself ( e.g. “Magpakatotoo ka!”)?
Critique these slogans based on your understanding of
the moral obligation to obey our conscience.
c) What is the importance of forming our conscience? How is
this obligation related to our obligation to obey our
conscience?

4. TWO BASIC OBLIGATIONS TO FOLLOW AND
FORM OUR CONSCIENCE
a) FOLLOW YOUR CONSCIENCE
b) FORM YOUR CONSCIENCE

5. FOLLOW YOUR CONSCIENCE
Our conscience is subjective
and personal capacity to judge
what, in our best light, we
genuinely consider to be morally
good and should be done, or
consider to be morally evil and
should be avoided. Because of
this function, we have the
obligation to always follow our
conscience.

6. “In the depths of our
conscience, we detect a law
which we did not make but
which we must obey. . . For,
there is in our hearts a law
written by God.”
- Gaudium et Spes 16

7. When Gentiles who do not have the law by
nature observe the prescriptions of the law, they
are law for themselves even though they do not
have the law. They show that the demands of the
law are written in their hearts, while their
conscience also bears witness and their conflicting
thoughts accuse or even defend them on the day
when. . . God will judge people’s hidden works
through Christ Jesus.
- Rom 2:14-16

8. We understand and experience the inner law when we
reflect on our moral acts.
a) are you going with your friends for a “gimmick” ? Or study instead
for tomorrow’s test?
b) are you going to play computer games the whole day? Or finish
first instead your performance task?
c) are you planning to cheat to pass the exam? Or to be honest
instead to uphold values?

9. Our consciences work because of our natural capacity of
intellect.
Our capacity of intellect has its limitations, therefore, we
should use our conscience for us to choose what is good
and avoid what is evil.
Hence, if we neglect to heed our conscience, we sin

10. “Some, by rejecting conscience, have
made shipwreck of their faith” ( 1 Tm
1:19).

11. Form or educate your conscience.
Because no one’s conscience is automatically
formed from birth, we have an obligation to
educate our conscience by studying and learning
universal objective moral norms in order to avoid
having an ignorant or erroneous conscience (e.g. , a
conscience that mistakenly judges something
objectively evil to be good or vice versa).

12. Correct conscience
One that accurately judges moral goodness or evil
according to what is objectively good or evil.

13. Forming a Christian Conscience
a) conscience is God’s gift and
b) our conscience is motivated and illumined by
the teachings and example of Jesus Christ and
empowered by the Holy Spirit

14. Matthew 12:9-13, Jesus heals a Man with a Withered
Hand
a) what is the main idea of the reading?
b) summarize the dilemma presented in the
reading.
c) explain how Jesus obeyed His conscience by
healing the man.

15. a) In the account, we are shown that Jesus had a
deeper, more accurate understanding of God’s
laws than the Pharisee.
b) To Christ, it was clear curing or doing something
good for others do not contradict the Sabbath
law.
c) Jesus upheld the fundamental value protected
by the Sabbath law: the true worship of God .