Ecclesial Conscience and "Common Sense": The Conscience as Shared Knowledge

What do we mean by the conscience, and how have our assumptions about the conscience changed as our perspective of the person and the moral life have changed?

Today's episode is the opening material of a full class module called Reformed Casuistry and Moral Theology. Casuistry is a very old word but continues to be a very popular way the Bible is used--focused as it is on case studies. Casuistry is, in brief, the application of Scripture and distinctly Christian principles and commitments to the particular concrete and often messy or complicated questions of moral life. Casuistic ethical inquiry is something the early modern Reformed tradition excelled at, though there was a great deal of development among the theorist and practitioners over time as well. Some of the great names of the Reformed tradition from this period--particularly William Perkins and William Ames--were also highly influential casuistical theologians who bequeathed to the confessional Reformed tradition a whole framework for thinking about and using the law of God in ethical life.

This course module explores Reformed casuistry by examining the nature and (perhaps surprising) differences between these lions of the Reformed tradition, as well as the nature of Scripture, how Scripture works ethically, and similar questions. But the course module begins with the material made available in today's podcast--material which explores the nature of the conscience and the ways that the very idea of the conscience underwent a major shift in keeping with changes in theological anthropology. The result, at least in these opening lecture segments, is a call to retrieve something lost in the turn from the pre-modern to the modern world: the notion of the conscience as communal rather than exclusively individual; the idea, that is, of a "common sense" that is ecclesial. 

To see what this means and how this might be important for Christian ethics you'll have to listen not only to the following selection from the module but to the series as a whole which is available at Greystone Connect. Still, we trust this one selection may provide at least a glimpse into what is involved. This and many other offerings are available at Greystone Connect, along with the group study option for many of these courses, micro-courses, and series.