Conscience: Where Bob Dylan Got It Right and Jiminy Cricket Got It Wrong

"The Preacher was a'talkin',
There's a sermon he gave,
He said every man's conscience
Is vile and depraved.
You cannot depend on it
To be your guide,
When it's you who must
Keep it satisfied." - Bob Dylan, "The Man in the Long Black Coat"

"And always let your conscience be your guide,
Guide, guide!
And always let your conscience be your guide!" - Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio

Are the Holy Spirit and your conscience the same thing?

Think about that for a minute. I don't know about you, but until very recently I thought that my conscience and the Holy Spirit were one and the same. Unfortunately, I have been run ragged due to this misinformation, my conscience acting like a little imp scurrying around and gleefully dropping a restless question here, a twang of guilt there, and an general sense of unease all over my spiritual life. I have mentioned before that I struggle with legalism, and now I know that it has been my conscience, not God's Holy Spirit, that has been making me feel like I wasn't doing enough or simply wasn't enough spiritually.

So what's the difference? Frankly, I'm still learning this myself, but to put it in simplest terms, the conscience is something everyone is born with, while the Holy Spirit only becomes a part of you after you have received Christ in your life and accept to be under His authority.

"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all the things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." - John 14:26 (ESV)

We also know that it's possible to have people who have "depart[ed] from the faith...whose consciences are seared." (1 Tim. 4:1-2) In other words, these people Paul mentions are no longer believers in God, yet they still have a conscience. So whether you're a believer in God or not, you've got a conscience.

So what do we do with this naughty imp that can either help us or harangue us? Again, I'm just beginning to understand all this, but I think that we make ourselves obedient to the Holy Spirit first, then make our consciences obedient to Him, too. But what does it mean to be obedient to the Holy Spirit? It means we look to the Scriptures for the ultimate authority on our lives, and train our consciences to guide us according to that ultimate authority.

"...let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." - Heb. 10:22 (ESV)

"But wait!" Jiminy Cricket protests. "Are you saying that my conscience isn't good enough as it is? That I can't always let my conscience be my guide, guide, guide?" Unfortunately, Jiminy, you cannot :(. We are all fallen creatures and harbor our own dark, secret desires. Even people who have given their lives over to God still battle these desires, although these people now have the Holy Spirit to help them fight back. "Every man's conscience is vile and depraved, Jiminy," says Bob Dylan. "You cannot depend on it to be your guide, when it's you who must keep it satisfied."

As Christians, we need to study the Scriptures to learn how to train our conscience (which can be persuaded by the world or our own dark interests) to match what God asks of us. However, we must also be careful to not ignore our consciences completely, as sometimes they even contradict Scripture, but it's not entirely wrong that they do:

"Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one...However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols?" - 1 Cor. 8:4, 7-10 (ESV)

So in this case, it would be OK for that "weak" brother to listen to his conscience rather than the truth that there is no other God but One, because as a former idol-worshiper he still has lingering thoughts that the old idols are real. Therefore, out of respect and love for God and a tender conscience, he abstains from eating the meat, even though it would be perfectly OK for him to eat it.

Listen when your conscience is tender about something that either isn't in the Scriptures or seems a little contradictory to the Scriptures (within reason!), but don't attempt to make your conscience tender about something. That leads to legalism. Train your conscience to follow God's Scriptures, but train yourself to listen and respond to the things your conscience feels sensitive toward. You need a dash of Bob Dylan's cynicism and Jiminy Cricket's optimism, mixed with a healthy and thorough understanding of Scripture, to have a realistic and helpful view and use of your conscience.