Discernment and Conscience

Joan of Arc (1895) by Edward Penfield

DISCERNMENT AND CONSCIENCE

Do all instances of the discernment of the spirits involve moral judgment and the operation of our conscience?

Our answer to this question substantially depends on our definition of terms—discernment, moral judgment, and conscience.

Discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is an exercise of our capacity to distinguish between the influence of good and evil spirits in our lives. It is a judgment about the spiritual origin or source of the aforementioned influences that serves as the basis of our decisions and of our actions, whether interior or outward, that follow upon our decisions.

Some basic ideas about discernment:

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/07/discernmentwhat-is-it.html

The four spirits:

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/07/what-are-spirits.html

Signs of the good and bad spirits:

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/07/st-ignatius-of-loyolas-14-rules-for.html

Moral judgment involves our capacity to distinguish between moral good and moral evil, that is, between what accords with the law of God and what contravenes it, in general and in any particular situation. Although we all have this natural capacity, it is impaired and sometimes may even be damaged to the point of inutility because of the effects of original and personal sin, and as a result we all need the assistance of grace to judge rightly.

We define conscience as our capacity to make moral judgments. 

Therefore, discernment of the spirits is necessarily entailed in the operation of our conscience.

This type of discernment has been described as “moral discernment.”

“Moral discernment…is a significant human trait. This is the ability to perceive and evaluate the quality of actions and behaviors from the perspective of good and evil.”

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137462619_11

—Domènec Melé and César González Cantón, “Action, Human Flourishing and Moral Discernment,” Human Foundations of Management (2014), IESE Business Collection. Palgrave Macmillan, London, pages 204–232

Sometimes our conscience presents us not with morally good and evil choices but rather with two or more morally good choices. We might be asked to choose between good, better, best, or some permutation of the foregoing, all of which are judged to be morally good. In this case we are asked to exercise a type of discernment that, strictly speaking, does not involve moral judgment but rather some other kind of evaluation in which factors that are not moral, strictly speaking, come into play. This evaluation involves discernment but not necessarily moral judgment, and correspondingly, our conscience is not entailed.

This type of discernment has been described as “Ignatian discernment.”

“Pondering and noticing interior movements of attraction and heaviness are at the heart of Ignatian discernment. Discernment involves prayer and weighing facts and feelings about the several good choices which ultimately leads to a choice about what is the best fit for an individual.”

https://www.marquette.edu/mission-ministry/explore/ignatian-discernment.php#:~:text=Pondering%20and%20noticing%20interior%20movements,best%20fit%20for%20an%20individual

—Rev. Doug Leonhardt, S.J., “What Is Ignatian Discernment?” Marquette University, 2022

The following interpretation of Ignatian discernment underscores emotional motivation. It emphasizes “emotivism” as a necessary tipping point in discernment.

“There is a set of emotions related to faith and integrated with it, and these Christian emotions are aroused by prayer, worship, spiritual reading, and so on. …The other set of emotions includes those bearing on the possibilities between which one must discern…. These emotions are aroused by carefully and concretely considering as fully as possible what actually would be involved in the options under consideration. (It is assumed that the necessary investigating and information gathering already have been done.) Then one’s Christian-faith emotions are compared with the sets of emotions related to each option—emotions which reflect not only the realities on which they bear but the reality of one’s hidden self. What is involved here is not some sort of objective measurement, but the effort to perceive an inward harmony. If the emotions related to one option plainly harmonize better with one’s Christian-faith emotions, that can be considered the option which pleases one’s Christian self, and one should choose as pleases this self.”

http://twotlj.org/G-2-5-J.html

—Mount Saint Mary’s University, “Living a Christian Life: Chapter 5: Seeking Moral Truth: Moral Judgment and Problem Solving: Question J: How Should One Discern between or among Good Options?” The Way of the Lord Jesus

We could also argue that all our decisions and actions are moral even if remotely so because they are all obligated to conform to God’s will for our lives whether in a major way or in some minor or practically inconsequential sense. According to this point of view, everything is moral, so that it becomes possible to define moral discernment in a manner that construes all intentional human activity, practically, as moral.

“Moral discernment involves discerning (discovering, judging) which goals (ends, intentions) and means (actions) really are conducive to human fulfillment and according to God’s will. Note: when a person (moral agent) acts deliberately, he or she always acts for some reason or goal (end, intention). Deliberately chosen actions are means to some goal. [Compare, e.g., Benedict Ashley and Kevin O'Rourke, Health Care Ethics: A Theological Analysis (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1997), “Principle of Moral Discrimination,” 187-91; and Dietrich von Hildebrand, Christian Ethics (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., (953), 302-8.] From a Christian perspective, God wants our complete or integral fulfillment.”

—Paul Flaman, “Moral Discernment and Culpability,” The Linacre Quarterly (February 2004) 71(1):34-46

I’d say that this understanding of “moral discernment” that construes all human decisions and actions as moral is an extreme point of view.

I would prefer to understand our Creator as allowing us the exercise of our freedom in the many areas of our human experience that are not, strictly speaking, moral, inasmuch as we are still bound to accept responsibility for the consequences of our decisions and actions, consequences that for the most part would be practical in nature.

Back to our question, “Do all instances of the discernment of the spirits involve moral judgment and the operation of our conscience?” 

 

Answer: No.