Page 132 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 10

The “evil conscience” Romans and Galatians, our freedom in Christ…
(insert Narcissos – attribution: Magnus Enckell
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
The functions of conscience can be enslaved
to the self, enlisted to manage sin and defend
against death in a futile struggle. Rather than
guiding the soul in accurately applying moral
principles to its specific situations, it can afflict
its bearer with
false guilt. It can moralize, be unforgiving, or
strive to manufacture a “too good to be true”
impression with others. It’s worth noting that
there can be other serious problems with the
conscience that I’m not addressing in this pa-
per (such as the undeveloped conscience of
the schizoid character and the seared consci- how the unhealed disturbance of infancy ef-
ence caused by willful unrepentance despite
awareness of guilt). The neurotic conscience is
attempting to apply the law with its eyes fixed
firmly on the self and its own interests.
Payne writes about this as a common failure of
Christian maturity:
“By and large we Christians do not understand
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We do not grasp the greatest, most concrete rea-
lity we have as those born of the Spirit – Christ
in us. Our tendency is to remain in or come
back under law and condemnation rather than
to walk in the Spirit, listening to and obeying
our Lord. Paul cried out to the Romans:
There is no condemnation of those who are uni-
ted with Christ Jesus, because in Christ Jesus
the life-giving law of the Spirit has set you free
from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1-2,
5NEB).
The occasion for his outcry was the Romans
going back under the law. They were straying
from listening to God and the vital walk in the
Spirit to which mature Christians are called.
Certain teachers were taking them back to the
law in order to better “control” and rule over
them. This is exactly what happens to Chri-
stians today when they fail to come into the
freedom of the realized, mature self in Christ”
(Payne, Listening prayer: learning to hear God‘s
voice and keep a prayer journal, 1994, p. 147).
When the neurotic conscience dominates
within, reasoning and even contact with reality
will be impaired. Lake notes that the superego is
atavistic and fails to differentiate contemporary
and infantile relationships (2005). Fowler arti-
culates how the neurotic conscience’s constant
attack on the self “impairs one’s capacity for co-
gnitive function, because of the intense anxiety
that results… The adult who is assailed by an
endlessly fault-finding and accusatory supere-
go, one that will be satisfied by nothing short
of perfection, will be chronically anxious, and
have little confidence in his capacity to think.”
(Fowler, 2017, p. 62).
The neurotic conscience also wreaks havoc in
the spiritual life of its bearer. Lake describes
fectively interfere with the capacity to receive
God’s love in the present: “He is no longer in the
presence of the God of Christian theology, he is
in the presence of the merciless ‚god‘ of his first
year. He is back in hell, crying out to someone
who does not come; praying with utter longing
to someone who is evidently not there. What is
the point of going on praying to someone who