THE REVELATION OF GOD IN CONSCIENCE
The word ‘conscience’ has several definitions. What is its definition and how is God revealed in conscience? Put differently, what is the revelation of God in conscience? One of the definitions of conscience is “conscience is being aware of of right and wrong, with the inclination or compulsion to the right”. In a person’s conscience, there is always a ‘battle’ between making a choice between right and wrong. Everybody possesses the faculty of conscience and this is a universally accepted fact. After the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, his guilty conscience drove him (including the women) to hide from God (Genesis 3:8).
In Romans 2:14-15, Paul stated that “for when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another” From this scripture, the Gentiles don’t have the law but it is inherent in them naturally which they obey, suggesting the existence of the supreme God in man, giving man access to the ‘law’ through the spirit and also holding man accountable to obedience or disobedience to the ‘law’. Therefore, God is revealed in the conscience of man despite the fall in the Garden of Eden.
The revelation of God in the conscience of man is insufficient on its own to exclude man from God on two counts. Firstly, although God is revealed in conscious, it does not give man that personal relationship with God. Secondly, God’s revelation in conscience is fallible because of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. It is through the blood of Jesus Christ that a man can have his conscience restored (2 Corinthians 4:2; 1 Timothy 3:9). This is the reason why morality alone cannot completely restore man to his former glory.
