What Is A Conscience?

Excerpt from The Book On Leadership by John MacArthur, pp. 78-79.

"The conscience is a built-in warning system that signals us when something we have done is wrong. The conscience is to our souls what pain sensors are to our bodies: it inflicts distress, in the form of guilt, whenever we violate what our hearts tell us is right.

The conscience bears witness to the reality that some knowledge of God's moral law is inscribed on every human heart from creation (Romans 2:15). Both the Greek word for "conscience" (suneidesis) and the Latin root from which the English term is derived have to do with self-knowledge--specifically, a moral self-awareness. That capacity for moral reflection is an essential aspect of what Scripture means when it says we are made in the image of God. Our sensitivity to personal guilt is therefore a fundamental trait of our humanness that distinguishes us from animals. To try to suppress the conscience is in effect to diminish one's own humanity."