HKB
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Often appears with: equity, mercy, and pardon · duty, conscience, and obligation · sin, guilt, and repentance · will and knowledge · unjust laws · tyranny of human law · the passions and the emotions · sin subject · scruple · scripture and its interpretation · rights and liberties · religious persecution and toleration
Usually: argument (6) · detachment (3) · crisis of belief (2) · injustice endured (2) · censure (2) · narrative (1) · the fall of the great (1) · the test or trial (1) · exhortation (1) · indignation (1)
“a law that is not just, seems to be no law at all.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) · insight
“I told them there were more ways than one in which a man might be said to call the people together. As for instance, if a man get upon the market-place, and there read a book, or the like” John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners · observation
“The positions themselves must be false. For were they true, the Idea would lose the sole ground of its reality.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inqui · insight
When Bunyan will not effectively renounce meetings, the justice orders him to prison; Bunyan illustrates how reading or preaching “calls” people together, then refuses to break conscience and goes back with God’s comfort.
I told him that the foolish and the ignorant had most need of teaching and information; and, therefore, it would be profitable for me to go on in that work. *Fost.* Well, said he, to conclude, but will you promise that you will not call the people together any more? and then you may be released and go home. *Bun.* I told him that I durst say no more than I had said; for I durst not leave off that work which God h…
Thomas denies that angels can read secret thoughts in the mind directly, though they can infer hidden thoughts from effects or bodily signs and they can know will-related matters only as permitted by God.
even when conceived in thought, when the soul expresses them by certain signs in the body"; although (Retract. ii, 30) he says "it cannot be asserted how this is done." In another way thoughts can be known as they are in the mind, and affections as they are in the will: and thus God alone can know the thoughts of hearts and affections of wills. The reason of this is, because the rational creature is subject to God o…
Aquinas introduces an objection-based discussion on whether conscience is a power, citing Origen’s description of conscience as a guiding spirit and noting that conscience is said to be defiled.
the power. But the object of the speculative intellect is *truth,* and of the practical is *good;* which differ in nature. Therefore the speculative and practical intellect are distinct powers. Obj. 3: Further, in the intellectual part, the practical intellect is compared to the speculative, as the estimative is to the imaginative power in the sensitive part. But the estimative differs from the imaginative, as power…
Aquinas continues by holding that human laws bind in conscience when they are just—aiming at the common good, proportioning burdens, and not exceeding the lawgiver’s power—while unjust laws bind only to avoid scandal.
Whether Human Law Binds a Man in Conscience? Objection 1: It would seem that human law does not bind man in conscience. For an inferior power has no jurisdiction in a court of higher power. But the power of man, which frames human law, is beneath the Divine power. Therefore human law cannot impose its precept in a Divine court, such as is the court of conscience. Obj. 2: Further, the judgment of conscience depends …
He concludes that requiring confession as God’s authorization is a tyrannical human imposition, introduced when people fell into barbarism, and it either crushes consciences with despair or flatters them into carelessness.
interpose his *veto*, and not suffer God of his mere goodness to receive any one into favour, unless he had lain prostrate before the tribunitial seat, and there been punished. XXIV. The whole argument comes to this—that if they will represent God as the author of this fictitious confession, it is a full proof of their error; for I have pointed out their fallacies in the few passages which they quote. But since it i…
Anthony and Vincent use the wolf’s and an ass’s post-confession penances to show conscience-driven scruples can restrain wrongdoing, until corrected by better spiritual guidance.
surely this shall be your penance, that you shall all this year never pass the price of sixpence at a meal, as near as your conscience can guess the price." Their shrift have I told you, as Mother Maud told it to us. But now serveth for our matter the conscience of them both in the true performing of their penance. The poor ass after his shrift, when he waxed an-hungered, saw a sow lie with her pigs, well lapped in …
He develops a critique of converting rational notions into supposed real objects, argues that true religion depends on revelation and moral law, and says speculative conclusions that clash with conscience must be rejected.
and Negation--with the attributes of Holiness, Providence, Love, Justice, and Mercy. It comprehends, moreover, the independent (*extra-mundane*) existence and personality of the supreme ONE, as our Creator, Lord, and Judge. The hypothesis of a *one* Ground and Principle of the Universe (necessary as an *hypothesis*; but having only a *logical* and *conditional* necessity) is thus raised into the Idea of the LIVING G…