The Conscience, Personal Identity, and Human Flourishing
Individuals must be directed to find their identity through the healthy workings of their conscience as they are centered in the “grace-moral ecology” of Scripture. The only accurate answer to the question of identity is, as Charles Taylor articulated, knowing
“where I stand to the good.”1 Therefore, the conscience as the personal witness to the individual’s relation to the good is an essential aid in the accurate formation of personal identity. The gospel concerning Jesus Christ, the one who is the ultimate “good,” invites individuals to live in his identity. Union with Christ means that the “Christian life involves donning the identity of someone else and not simply improving our own.”2 The Christian’s identity is now “in Christ.”
Many of the soul-pathologies in the West originate in the ever-increasing confusion in the areas of morality and identity. A socially constructed identity is, as Paul Vitz described, “polyvocal, plastic, and transient.”3 The instability of the secular identity crushes individuals and leads them to an “enslavement, to a treadmill of self-
reinvention.”4 The secular formation of identity focuses on a subjective construction of
1 Charles Taylor, Sources of The Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1989), 27. See also p. 2 of this dissertation.
2 Grant Macaskill, Living in Union with Christ: Paul’s Gospel and Christian Moral Identity (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 71.
3 Paul C. Vitz and Susan M. Felch, eds., The Self: Beyond the Postmodern Crisis (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2006), xiii. See also p. 9 of this dissertation.
4 Glynn Harrison, “Who Am I Today? The Modern Crisis of Identity,” Cambridge Papers 25, no. 1 (March 2016): 6.
identity based on one’s desires. This focus leads to an endless quest for identity, purpose, and meaning because there is a desperate pursuit of acceptance in each human soul.
Although the current social imaginary emphasizes self-acceptance as the path to fulfilling this desire, this path has proved to be incoherent and impossible. The individual
conscience cannot find appeasement and acceptance through sheer positive self-regard.
As Tim Keller writes,
In the end, we can’t say to ourselves, “I don’t care that literally everyone else in the world thinks I’m a monster. I love myself and that is all that matters.” That would not convince us of our worth, unless we are mentally unsound. We need someone from outside to say we are of great worth, and the greater the worth of that someone or someones, the more power they have to instill a sense of self and of worth. Only if we are approved and loved by someone whom we esteem can we achieve self- esteem. To use biblical terms, we need someone to bless us because we can’t bless ourselves. We are irreducibly social and relational beings. We need someone we respect to respect us. We need someone we admire to admire us. Even when modern people claim to be validating themselves, the reality is always that they are
socializing themselves into a new community of peers, of “cheerleaders,” of people whose people they crave.5
As was argued at the beginning of chapter 4, a counselor who is seeking to care for individuals must guide them to the path of stable identity formation. This path necessarily addresses the moral context of each person’s life. The counselee’s conscience will help guide them to their moral situation, their moral need, and the only moral fix in the atoning death of Jesus Christ and an individual’s union with him by faith. God designed the conscience as a tool for the proper formation of one’s identity.
The argument of this dissertation is that the biblical teaching of the conscience is a necessary foundation for every counseling situation. Leading people to a healthy conscience is not a cure-all for every psychological and emotional struggle, but it is a necessary foundation for an accurate understanding of self—which is a fundamental starting-point for addressing all human struggle (see appendix 1). The other aspects of the
5 Timothy Keller, Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical (New York: Viking, 2016), 125.
counselee’s situations and struggles must still be addressed, but there will be little
progress without the foundation of peace brought about by a healthy conscience centered on the cross of Jesus Christ. The healthy conscience directs the individual to the atoning death of Jesus Christ and leads the individual to grace, blessing, and a certainty of acceptance before God. A healthy conscience is a necessary foundation for an understanding of identity, purpose, and meaning.
Although the persistence of guilt is described as strange in the current social imaginary, life is incoherent and unlivable without moral categories. As Tim Keller writes, “You may not believe in sin; you may not believe in hell; you may not believe in divine law—and yet, you’ve got a sense of condemnation that you can’t shake. There is a voice (is there not?) that calls you a fraud, an imposter, says you are not living up.” This internal voice cannot be explained away by “saying it’s some kind of psychological complex.” This voice communicates a real and present guilt that only makes sense in light of fixed moral categories. Keller continues, “Deep down, we know we aren’t what we should be because Somebody keeps telling us. There’s a court before which we all stand. There’s a justice with which we all must deal. There’s a standard we’ve all violated, and we all know it, and we all stand before it underdressed, without defense.”6
Therefore, leading people to the appeasement of the guilt of the accusing conscience is a fundamental aspect of soul-care. The conscience affects every counseling situation. This conclusion will consider two brief examples. First, a young man comes for counseling with feelings of self-hatred that have led him to self-harm. The young man’s home situation is in chaos. He has suffered abuse for years. His father tells him that everything about him has been a disappointment. Instead of giving the necessary and natural nurture that every son needs, the father has diminished and greatly damaged his
6 Tim Keller, Loving the City: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 107-8.
son. What does this young man need? It will be necessary to address his circumstances and how these circumstances have shaped him emotionally, spiritually, socially, and physically. It will be necessary to come alongside this young man as a sufferer, to sympathize with him. However, it will also be necessary to lead this man to a greater sense of self-worth. Only the Christian counselor has the resources to lead this young man to a self-worth and self-acceptance that is much more meaningful than any earthly father could give to a son. Through the “grace-moral ecology” of Scripture, the Christian counselor is able to lead this young man through the process of accurate self-
understanding. The counselor is able to lead the counselee to see himself as one who has not “measured up” to God’s calling and standard for humanity, as one in need of divine approval, and as one who is able to find perfect acceptance before God because of faith in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ as a payment for his sin. Only this process quiets the conscience and leads to a healthy understanding of self that is found “in Christ.”
The second example of how the conscience influences counseling is in the current confusion with sexual identity. The self-constructed identity of secularism has led individuals to form their identities on the shallow basis of their shifting desires, feelings, and perceived needs. Individuals who form their identity in this way may speak of internal relief at finding their true selves, but it is a shallow and unstable relief that is sadly and disastrously exposed in many lives. One’s identity must be based on something solid, stable, and secure if there is to be any permanence in one’s sense of self. The healthy conscience connects individuals to “the good”—namely, God himself. When the biblical teaching on the conscience is upheld and encouraged, people are led through the dark maze of the formation of sexual identity in this secular age. The hyper individualism of the secular West leads to “the interiorization of human consciousness.”7 The problem is that this interiorization “has led us up what feels like a blind alley where our so-called
7 Taylor, Sources of The Self, 25.
inner life seems disjoined from our physical surroundings. . . . We find ourselves living at a time when the traditional categories for thinking of the self have made us strangers to ourselves and to the world around us.”8 The healthy conscience tethers an individual to the stability of the moral world, and it connects an individual to God’s gracious answer to every moral and spiritual need.
A major problem in ministry and soul-care practices today is that the church has completely acquiesced to the therapism of the surrounding culture. A few decades ago, Henri Nouwen wrote that
few ministers and priests think theologically. Most of them have been educated in a climate in which the behavioral sciences, such as psychology and sociology, so dominated the educational milieu that no true theology was being learned. Most Christian leaders today raise psychological and sociological questions even though they frame them in scriptural terms. Real theological thinking, which is thinking with the mind of Christ, is hard to find in the practice of ministry. Without solid theological reflection, future leaders will be little more than pseudo-psychologists, pseudo-sociologists, pseudo-social workers. They will think of themselves as enablers, facilitators, role models, father or mother figures, big brothers or big sisters, and so on, and thus join the countless men and women trying to help their fellow human beings cope with the stresses and strains of everyday living. But that has little to do with Christian leadership.9
The disparate view of therapism on morality, identity, and human purpose must lead Christian counselors to stand firm in their calling to care and help others by directing them to the “grace-moral ecology” of Scripture. Christian counselors possess the resources to lead individuals to true peace, proper self-understanding, and, therefore, human flourishing. The calling of the Christian counselor is to help people see their true need, their moral dilemma, and their falling-short of God’s perfect standard. Then, from this position of need, the counselor has the privilege of pointing them to Jesus Christ—
the One who has perfectly met their need. This is the foundation upon which all soul-care
8 Taylor, Sources of the Self, 27.
9 Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 65-66.
must operate. The conscience testifies to the individual’s need; the conscience testifies to the perfect acceptance that comes in union with Jesus Christ.
The cross of Jesus Christ is central and necessary for any clear formation of identity.10 The cross is not just for Christians. The cross of Jesus Christ is the only “moral currency” that is able to lead broken and sinful people into the place of acceptance and true self-worth. The secular and therapeutic mindset of the surrounding culture scoffs at the need for atonement as the basis for self-worth. Their folly has been described and exposed. This mindset has been around for generations. As the wise King Solomon stated centuries ago, “Fools mock at the guilt offering, but the upright enjoy acceptance” (Prov 14:9). The “strange persistence of guilt” that remains in each heart is just one of the signs that all of humanity lives in a thick moral space. The competing moral ecologies only provide a shallow and ineffective answer to the human need. The “grace-moral ecology”
of Scripture is the only path that leads to a durable sense of self-worth. For the Christian, living each day in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, “repentance and faith are like breathing.”11 The healthy conscience exposes sin, encourages repentance, and through God’s grace, leads to the cross. The healthy conscience will have a heart transfixed by the cross of Christ. This cross-shaped conscience is the foundation of human purpose, and it leads to true human flourishing in the thick moral space of this world. A prayer of John Donne provides a fitting conclusion to this consideration of the conscience:
O Lord, enable me, according to your command, to commune with my own heart upon my bed, and be still; to provide a bed for all my former sins while I lie upon my bed, and a grave for my sins before I come to my grave; and when I have deposited them in the wounds of your Son, to rest in that assurance, that my conscience is discharged of further anxiety, and my soul from further danger, and my memory from further calumny. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who did and
10 John Stott writes, “Who are we, then? How should we think of ourselves? What attitude should we adopt toward ourselves? These are questions to which a satisfactory answer cannot be given without reference to the cross.” John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2006), 267.
11 Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God (Colorado Springs:
David C. Cook, 2016), 221.
suffered so much, that you might, as well in your justice as in your mercy, do it for me, your Son, our Savior, Christ Jesus.12
Methodology and Key Questions for Counseling
One of the greatest issues of the current context is the struggle for a stable and enduring moral identity. The various attempts of addressing and forming a moral identity have been described and explained throughout this dissertation. This closing section will provide a summarized approach to the assessment and counseling of individuals towards an awareness and proper focus on the conscience and a person’s moral identity. It is important that counselors both carefully assess a person’s operating “moral ecology” as well as lead their counselees to the “grace-moral ecology” of the Bible. A methodology for addressing a counselee’s moral identity will typically proceed through two emphases:
first, a survey of the individual’s personal moral ecology. This assessment will consider the sources and authority of the counselee’s understanding of morality along with how their understanding of morality affects both their personal identity and their response to personal guilt. Then, secondly, the counselor will present and describe the unique “grace- moral ecology” of the Bible. Here, the counselor will be able to establish the Bible as the unique source for an accurate understanding of morality and identity. The counselor has the opportunity to tell the “better story”13 of identity formation in light of the redemptive storyline of Scripture. Christianity uniquely and beautifully answers the present cultural confusion in the area of one’s moral identity.
Survey and Explore the Counselee’s Personal Moral Ecology
In the initial stages of counseling, the counselor needs to lead the counselee to a healthy assessment and understanding of the counselee’s sources for understanding
12 John Donne, The Works of John Donne, vol. 3, ed. Henry Alford (London: John W. Parker, 1839), 507.
13 Joshua D. Chatraw, Telling a Better Story: How to Talk About God in a Skeptical Age (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020), 13.