Conscience

Conscience (Greek syneidēsis) is the inner moral faculty by which a person judges the rightness or wrongness of their own actions. The word is absent from the Old Testament but the reality it names is present: David's heart smote him after certain actions (1 Samuel 24:5; 2 Samuel 24:10), and wisdom literature addresses the inner moral sense. Paul provides the most developed biblical account of conscience, describing it as a witness that accuses or defends — even among Gentiles who lack the written law, the work of the law is written on their hearts, their conscience bearing witness (Romans 2:15).

Conscience in Paul can be weak (easily offended, excessively scrupulous) or strong (informed by sound knowledge), and its authority is not absolute — a clear conscience does not guarantee innocence before God (1 Corinthians 4:4). Paul insists that his own ministry was conducted so as to commend itself to every person's conscience in the sight of God (2 Corinthians 4:2). A defiled conscience is a sign of spiritual decay (Titus 1:15); a seared conscience, one burned past feeling, is the mark of apostasy (1 Timothy 4:2). The blood of Christ purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14).