THE
MORAL HEART, PT. 2
By
Jason Moore
The Conscience is the Judicial Chamber of the moral
heart. Conscience
is the apparatus that sits in judgment over a man’s
actions and is for this reason described as the Judicial
Chamber of the heart. As the judge of a man’s moral
condition it is constantly on watch delivering its verdict
on past, present and even future action. It commends or
condemns past action, accuses or excuses present conduct,
and approves or disapproves contemplated activity (Rom.
2:15). It is properly a
judicial and
not a
legislative chamber.
The conscience doesn’t make laws, it only enforces
them. The conscience must be properly informed of right and
wrong, truth and falsehood, good and evil, sin and
righteousness, vice and virtue, wickedness and uprightness.
It is good at judging and policing action, but it is only
as dependable as the standard it has been taught. The
conscience is quite vulnerable to three sorts of injuries.
(1) An uneducated or misinformed conscience like an
ignorant jury or a sleeping dog will let the trespasser go
free, so that Paul could say when he was a persecutor of
the church, “I thought to myself that I had to do
many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth”
(Acts 26:9). (2) If regularly disregarded and so trampled
upon, like unshod feet, the conscience grows callous after
its blisters heal and becomes dull and insensitive (Eph.
4:19). (3) If truth is the friend of the conscience, then a
lie is its worst enemy, just like a false witness is the
foe of the courtroom. For that reason the consciences of
liars and hypocrites are said to be seared (1 Tim. 4:2).
The Will is the Executive Chamber of the moral
heart. Man
is endowed with the power of choice and the will is the
seat of that faculty. The other chambers of the moral heart
are subject to the will. The intellect empowers the will to
make informed decisions, but the attention of the intellect
is turned by the will. A man decides with what to fill his
intellect like does his belly, by a pattern of choices he
develops habits of thought, and having understood a truth
he decides what to do about it. While the will must push
the intellect, it must restrain the emotion. The emotions
tug at the will like a horse at the reins, but the will is
in the saddle and tames the heart (or emotion) by turning
the head (or intellect) this way and that. In fact, we
sometimes say to the impatient, “Hold your
horses!” The conscience lobbies the executive chamber
of the will to act in accord with justice. The will decides
whether to heed or to trample the appeals of the
conscience. Furthermore, by an act of will a man applies
the intellect to the training of his conscience and so
chooses his counselors like a president chooses his
cabinet. He can fill it with flatterers who always applaud
him or fill it with wise advisers who censure him when
necessary.
The physical heart is a thing of wonder but the moral heart
is even more so. See how it’s made, learn how it
functions, know the risk factors, and understand how to
care for your moral heart, keep it healthy.