The Argument from Conscience

by Dr. Jeff Mirus

In his Grammar of Assent, John Henry Cardinal Newman attempts to explain how human persons come to assent to both ideas and realities, including both the idea and the reality of God. In the course of his study he persuasively explains the significance of the faculty we call “conscience”, and in so doing articulates an important argument which has largely fallen into disuse.

Newman points out that the operations of the conscience point strongly to the existence of a supreme judge, that is, to the existence of God. While all human faculties can be more or less developed depending on personality and circumstances, Newman rightly notices that it is the overwhelming experience of human persons to feel a strong sense of right and wrong, and to be thrown into various emotional and psychological states depending on whether they have acted rightly or wrongly. Newman sees this at work beginning in very young children, though he acknowledges that this sense of right and wrong, and its corresponding emotions, can be strengthened or weakened based on circumstances, including habitual virtues or vices...

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