“The Conscience and Its Witness” is the first chapter of volume two of Inner Land, The Conscience.

For Arnold, while all forms of life are fitted with an instinct against death, the uniquely human component, the spirit, also contains a higher faculty: the conscience. “The conscience is the spirit’s sensitive organ of response. It has the task of warning the character against degeneration and destruction, because the character is meant to preserve moral order” (2). Our conscience serves as a “warning bell” against that which is spiritually harmful, directing us to reconcile with God and unite with all humanity. Readers should be careful not to confuse the moral faculty that is the conscience (Gewissen), unique to human beings, with consciousness (Bewusstsein), the basic state of being alive and experiencing the world through the senses, which is found among the animals too.

But the conscience does not simply govern abstract moral order. It is the faculty through which God calls us to obedience: “It can never be separated from the spirit’s direct consciousness of God. It plays a part whenever the certainty of an absolute ‘thou shalt’ or ‘thou shalt not’ penetrates the consciousness. In the absoluteness of ‘thou shalt,’ God works directly on us” (3). Nonetheless, Arnold clarifies that the conscience is not itself the voice of God but rather an “echo” of it (3). As such, however, “even in depraved and irreverent souls” this echo can be heard (4), because human beings have been given God’s own breath. No matter how far the individual strays, this inner longing for unity with God and others through pursuit of the good remains. The conscience persists despite separation from God; it remains a witness to the fact that we have been made in his image.

In the biblical story, this basic relationship between God and the conscience is disrupted almost from the very beginning. Humanity “so soon became murderous and would not let themselves be judged and ruled by God’s Spirit” (6). In such dire circumstances, God gave the law and “conceded” the death penalty (6). Sometime later, the people of Israel rejected God’s rule and demanded a human king for themselves. For Arnold, then, the giving of the law at Sinai and the establishment of the Israelite monarchy are God’s concessions to human evil. As such, the state and the rule of law do not represent God’s ultimate intentions for humanity: “As soon as the conscience is roused through God’s Spirit, it demands – even in the face of authority – that we should obey God rather than men, for God’s kingdom demands recognition over and above all the kingdoms of this world” (7).

The conscience directed by God’s Spirit does not tolerate excuses. It recognizes and eschews all evil, which Arnold summarizes into four categories: “Murder, lying, impurity, and property” (8).¹ Indeed, the Spirit-directed conscience becomes increasingly sensitive to that which is opposed to God. It takes joy in doing good, and it is pained by all sinful acts, providing a constant source of feedback for our decisions. In this sense, Arnold reflects, the conscience has a deeply emotional nature.

Of course, various pagan peoples throughout history have placed great importance on the conscience. Arnold acknowledges as much in his mention of the mythological Furies (Latin Furiae) or Erinyes (Greek), deities who exacted vengeance on evildoers: “As pitiless goddesses who bring curses and wrath upon men to all eternity, they pursue to death everyone who commits a crime against the blood of life” (12). In this sense, the Furies also represent the externalization of the individual conscience in the state and its rule of law. Another example of the unyielding condemnations of the conscience is found in the young Luther’s intense experiences of guilt and divine judgement that preceded his revelation of God’s grace and contributed to the beginnings of the Reformation.

Importantly, the conscience is not meant to play a merely negative role in the individual’s life: “The activity of the conscience is not limited to the condemnation of what is evil, unlovely, and wrong. It works toward the acceptance of all the life-energies of love, for they are the very core of life” (19). Nor is this positive work of the conscience limited to Christian experience. Arnold offers the example of Socrates, who “was not only saved from making false steps by his inner voice, but he was also driven to constructive action” (20).

Having discussed the positive and negative roles of the conscience among pagan peoples, Arnold returns to the theme of the relationship between this human faculty and the life that is required by God. He cautions that the conscience is not “an infallible authority” (20) and notes that the unredeemed conscience can only ever ultimately condemn, insofar as it is honest with itself. It recognizes the imperfection and hypocrisy characteristic of all human action, in that our evil will never be overcome through good works. “Man must serve God again with a free will and a clear conscience. This freedom and purity are to be found nowhere except in God” (23). So again, the conscience illuminated by the Holy Spirit no longer needs to accept human compromises such as complicity in state violence. Receiving the Spirit “means a break with the whole structure of public life as people have created it, a break with all existing conditions, and that means a turning to the life of Jesus and his coming kingdom” (23). Here he is almost certainly referring to the ethos of the Bruderhof and other communitarian churches such as the Hutterites, where people strive to live together in peace and reject war, violence, and coercion.

For Arnold, “the human conscience can be purified in no other way than through the sacrificed lifeblood of Jesus Christ” (27–28). While our own blood is “burdened with an evil inheritance” (28), Jesus’ was without blemish, ruled in complete unity with the Holy Spirit. This same Spirit is given to believers, who thus “will have their souls and consciences purified from all former guilt, and their lives will be protected from new offenses” (29). Having been purified, the conscience is free to serve God and “sets to work harder than ever before” (30). As such, it reflects more and more the image of God we are called to exemplify, the image perfectly represented in Jesus.

Continue:

Introduction
1.1. The Inner Life
1.2. The Heart
1.3. Soul and Spirit
2.1. The Conscience and Its Witness
2.2. The Conscience and Its Restoration
3.1. The Experience of God
3.2. The Peace of God
4.1. Light and Fire
4.2. The Holy Spirit
5.1. The Living Word

1. These categories are fundamental to Arnold’s understanding of sin and surface throughout his talks and writings in various ways.