139. From Secrets of Heaven
Conscience. People who have no conscience do not know what a conscience is: 7490, 9121. There are some people who laugh at conscience when they are told that there is such a thing: 7217. Some believe that there is no such thing as conscience; some believe that it is a kind of earthly pain and sadness brought on by a change either in physical health or in worldly circumstances; some believe that it is a form of control put on the lower classes by their religious tradition: 1
206, 847, 950. Some are unaware that they have a conscience even though they do: 2380.
[2] Good people have a conscience; evil people do not: 831, 965, 7490. If our life is devoted to love for God or to love for our neighbor, we have a conscience: 2380. It is especially the case that we have a conscience if we have been regenerated by the Lord: 977. We do not have a conscience if we are focused only on knowing what is true and not on living by it: 1076, 1077, 1919. We do not have a conscience if we do what is good simply because we are good-natured and not for religious reasons: 6208.
[3] We develop a conscience based on the teachings of our church or of whatever religious tradition we follow: 9112. Our conscience is shaped by the principles we believe to be true that we have been taught by our religion: 1077, 2053, 9113. Conscience is an inner restraint that keeps us focused on thinking, saying, and doing what is good and that holds us back from thinking, saying, and doing what is evil, not for selfish and worldly reasons but for the sake of what is good, true, fair, and right: 1919, 9120. Conscience is an inner voice telling us whether or not to act in some particular way: 1919, 1935. Essentially, conscience is an awareness of what is true and right: 986, 8081. The new will in a spiritual, regenerated individual is a conscience: 928, 1023, 1043, 1044, 4299, 4328, 4493, 9115, 9596. Our spiritual life comes from our conscience: 9117.
[4] Conscience may be true, or spurious, or false: 1033 (which includes discussion). The genuineness of the truths that shape our conscience is what determines how true our conscience is: 2053, 2063, 9114. In general, there are two levels on which conscience can exist, an inner level and an outer level. A conscience on an inner level is a conscience that is focused on what is spiritually good; its essence is truth. A conscience on an outer level is a conscience that is focused on what is morally and civically good; its essence is honesty and fairness-or more broadly, what is right: 5145, 6207, 10296.
[5] The pain felt in our conscience is a mental anxiety because of what is unfair, dishonest, and in any way evil, something we believe to be contrary to God and to the well-being of our neighbor: 7217. If we feel anxious when our thoughts take an evil turn, that comes from our conscience: 5470. The pain felt in our conscience is anguish because of something evil that we are doing, or else because of a loss of goodness or truth: 7217. Because a spiritual crisis 2
is a battle between what is true and what is false in our deeper levels, and because there is pain and anxiety involved in crises of the spirit, only people who have a conscience are allowed to have spiritual crises: 847.
[6] People who have a conscience speak and act from the heart: 7935, 9114. People who have a conscience do not swear empty oaths: 2842. People who have a conscience enjoy a sense of inner well-being when they are doing something good or performing some act of justice that accords with their conscience: 9118. People who have a conscience in this world have a conscience in the other life as well and are among the happy there: 965. Heaven flows into our conscience: 6207, 6213, 9122. The Lord governs spiritual people through their conscience, which serves them as an inner restraint: 1835, 1862. People who have a conscience have an inward kind of thinking, while people who do not have a conscience have only a superficial kind of thinking: 1919, 1935. People who have a conscience base their thinking on what is spiritual, while people who do not have a conscience base their thinking only on what is earthly: 1914. People who do not have a conscience are only outwardly human: 4459. The Lord governs people who do not have a conscience by means of outward restraints, all of which have to do with their love for themselves and for the world and the accompanying fear of losing reputation, status, position, profit, and possessions, as well as fear of the law and of loss of life: 1077, 1080, 1835. People who have no conscience and yet allow themselves to be controlled by these external restraints can still function well in high offices in this world and do just as much good as people who do have a conscience; but the restraints under which the former are operating are external and the things they do are good outwardly, whereas the restraints under which the latter are operating are internal and the things they do are good inwardly: 6207.
[7] People who do not have a conscience try to destroy the conscience of people who do: 1820. People who have no conscience in this world have no conscience in the other life either: 965, 9122. This means that for people in hell there is no torment of conscience on account of the evil things they did in this world: 965, 9122.
[8] The identity and nature of people who are hyperconscientious: 3
how hard they are on others, and what they correspond to in the spiritual world: 5386, 5724.
[9] People from the Lord's spiritual kingdom have a conscience, and it takes shape in their intellect: 863, 865, 875, 895, 927, 1043, 1044, 1555, 2256, 4328, 4493, 5113, 8521, 9115, 9915, 9995, 10124. People who are in the Lord's heavenly kingdom have something higher than conscience: 927, 1043, 4493, 5113, 6367, 8521, 9915, 9995, 10124.
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