CHAPTER FIVE

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CHAPTER FIVE

• Conscience Formation

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With and Without Conscience
Conscience
A practical judgment of reason that helps a
person decide the goodness or sinfulness of an
action or attitude. (It is the subjective norm
of morality that we must form properly and then
follow)
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Definition of Conscience

• What Conscience Is Not
• Conscience as majority opinion.
• Conscience as a feeling.
• Conscience as a superego.
• Conscience as gut-instinct.
• Conscience as Jiminy Cricket.
• Conscience as myth.

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Definition of Conscience

• What Conscience Is
• Conscience is awareness of Gods call to be.
• Conscience is awareness of Gods call to know and
  do the good, that is, to love.
• Conscience is a practical judgment of the
  intellect.

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How Conscience Works
virtue
vice
A good habit that empowers us to do good with ease
A bad habit, that inclines us to choose the evil
rather than the good
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How Conscience Works

• Study, Elect, Execute, Review

SEER a person in tune with truth,
a prophet
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How Conscience Works

• Study, Elect, Execute, Review
• You must always form and keep informing your
  conscience.
• You must follow your conscience.

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How Conscience Works

• Study, Elect, Execute, Review
• 1. Study
• Gather information about the moral object, the
  motives, and the circumstances involved in
  particular decisions.
• Review the fundamental principles of morality and
  consider how best to apply essential moral rules.
  

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How Conscience Works

• Study, Elect, Execute, Review
• 2. Elect
• Decision should be based on whether the proposed
  action is consistent with who you are as Gods
  creation made in his image.
• An essential part of making this decision is to
  pray.

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How Conscience Works

• Study, Elect, Execute, Review
• 3. Execute
• This involves responsibility.
• You must do what your conscience tells you is
  right or you sin.
• Be an actor, not a reactor. Take control of your
  own actions and own them.

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How Conscience Works

• Study, Elect, Execute, Review
• 4. Review
• Evaluate and reflect on the actions already
  performed.
• If we have taken the steps to form a good
  conscience, then our conscience will be clear.
• If we have gone against what we know we should
  have done and sinned, then our conscience can
  help us repent and reform.

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Peer Pressure and Conscience
The moral virtue that ensures firmness in
difficulties, and constancy in the pursuit of the
good (CCC1808).
fortitude
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Peer Pressure and Conscience
martyr
A witness ready to suffer and even die for truth
and virtue martyrdom is the ultimate act of
fortitude.
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Peer Pressure and Conscience

• Fortitude
• How to resist negative peer pressure
• Resolve to be your own person.
• Know your own standards.
• Use humor and grace to say no.
• Stay away from situations that might tempt you.

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Vocabulary

• Conscience
• Virtue
• Vice
• Seer
• Fortitude
• Martyr