signifying the innate principle in the moral consciousness of every
person which directs the agent to good and restrains him from evil. It
is first found in a singe passage of St. Jerome (d. 420) in his
explanation of the four living creatures in Ezekiel's vision. Jerome
explains that most commentators hold that the human, the lion, and the
ox of the vision represent the rational, the irascible, and the
appetitive (or concupiscent) parts of the soul, according to Plato's
division, while the fourth figure, that of the eagle, represents a
fourth part of the soul, above and outside these three:
This the Greeks call synderesis, which spark of conscience was not
extinguished from the breast of Adam when he was driven from Paradise.
Through it, when overcome by pleasures or by anger, or even as
sometimes deceived by a similitude of reason, we feel that we sin; …
and this in the scriptures is sometimes called spirit…. And yet we
perceive that the conscience (conscientia) is itself also thrown aside
and driven from its place by some who have no shame or modesty in
their faults.
In this passage no distinction seems to be drawn between synderesis
and conscientia. It has even been maintained that the former word is a
copyist's error for synderesis, the usual Greek equivalent for
"conscientia".
The use of synderesis as distinct from conscientia among the
scholastics, and to a slight extent among early Protestant moralists,
is founded on its description by Jerome as scintilla conscientiae –
the spark – from which the light of conscience arises. Thus Jeremy
Taylor calls it "the spark or fire put into the heart of humans,"
while synderesis, which is specifically called conscience of the deed
done, is the "bringing fuel to this fire (Ductor Dubitantium 1:1:1) As
distinguished from synderesis, conscientia is applied by these writers
to the particular attitude of a person to good or evil action, and may
accordingly be an unsafe guide. Synderesis is thus a faculty or habit
(it was disputed which) both of judging and of willing the right, in
agreeement with "original righteousness" and persisting in the
separate powers of the soul in spite of the corruption of human nature
brought about by the Fall. In the earlier descriptions it is spoken of
as volitional as well as intellectual. According to Aquinas, however,
it is distinctly practical reason – certain principles belonging to
the practical side of reason which point out the right direction for
action, just as the theoretical axioms of the understanding do for
thinking. Both synderesis and conscientia are placed among the
intellectual powers. A different view is given by Bonaventura, who
makes the whole distinction between conscientia and synderesis rest
upon the distinction between judgment and will. God (he says) has
implanted a double rule of right in human nature: one for judging
rightly, and this is the moral strength of conscience; another for
right volition, and this is the moral strength of synderesis, whose
function is to dissuade from evil and stimulate to good, and which may
therefore be described as the original moral tendency of the
disposition.
This, however, does not seem to be either the best or the most
prevalent view of scholasticism regarding synderesis. The question is
fully discussed by Duns Scotus, who decided against Bonaventura that
both synderesis and conscience belong to practial reason, the former
giving the first principles or major premises of its practical
syllogisms, the latter corresponding to their conclusions (In Sent.
Reportationes Bk 2:39, Q1-2). Jeremy Taylor also follows the Thomistic
use and makes synderesis "the general repository of moral principles
or measures." This is the "rule of conscience," while conscience
itself is "a conjunction of the universal practical law with the
particular moral action." It applies the rule to the particular case,
and is thus both witness and judge of moral actions. It may be noted
that the term "conscience," when used (as by Kant) as equivalent to
practical reason regarded as infallible, corresponds to the medieval
synderesis, and not to the medieval conscientia.
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