Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul posed what I, at least, consider to be a very important rhetorical question:
According to St. Paul, conscience is a principle of freedom and freedom should not be subject to the judgement of another person's conscience. For this would amount to allowing another person's scruples to undermine our own personal liberty. Elsewhere, he says that we must each live according to whatever convictions we hold before God.
I detect the roots of proto-liberal philosophy in Paul's appeal, as do many scholars. He says that we are not bound by the conscientious scruples of other individuals when exercising our freedom of action or conviction, just as we are not allowed to influence them, in turn, to violate their conscience in such matters.
This verse came to my mind while engaged in discussion on a thread about adultery and it made me wonder why fundamentalist Christians rarely seem to grapple with the implications of this statement and the surrounding argument Paul was articulating in his epistle to the church in Corinth. It's not a verse I see quoted, even amongst mainline Christians, all that often - yet its influence upon the course of intellectual history has been profound.
How do you understand this verse?
συνείδησιν δὲ λέγω οὐχὶ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀλλὰ τὴν τοῦ ἑτέρου. ἵνα τί γὰρ ἡ ἐλευθερία μου κρίνεται ὑπὸ ἄλλης συνειδήσεως
According to St. Paul, conscience is a principle of freedom and freedom should not be subject to the judgement of another person's conscience. For this would amount to allowing another person's scruples to undermine our own personal liberty. Elsewhere, he says that we must each live according to whatever convictions we hold before God.
I detect the roots of proto-liberal philosophy in Paul's appeal, as do many scholars. He says that we are not bound by the conscientious scruples of other individuals when exercising our freedom of action or conviction, just as we are not allowed to influence them, in turn, to violate their conscience in such matters.
This verse came to my mind while engaged in discussion on a thread about adultery and it made me wonder why fundamentalist Christians rarely seem to grapple with the implications of this statement and the surrounding argument Paul was articulating in his epistle to the church in Corinth. It's not a verse I see quoted, even amongst mainline Christians, all that often - yet its influence upon the course of intellectual history has been profound.
How do you understand this verse?
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