The Christian Conscience

At a blog called The Thinklings, Phil posts this quotation from 20th century theologian Helmut Thielicke:

‘The conscience is not serene or troubled according to what we have done or not done. Peace of conscience depends solely upon what we are, i.e., on whether we believe – and the extent to which we believe – in the boundless unconditioned mercy of God … It is theologically wrong to try to pacify a conscience-stricken person by talking away his sins. To do so is to try to cure him by means of the “outer tent.” But there is no healing here, and cannot be. In fact the heart of his problem is that he is still loitering in this forecourt. The only way we can help is to point him to the εφαπαξ that which took place once-and-for-all for him in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ’. – Helmut Thielicke, Theological Ethics Volume 1: Foundations (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979), 310.

I'm not sure that I agree with Thielicke here.

I think that when the self is serene (that is, when we do only what we mean to do and that's shaped by love), the conscience is untroubled.

Perhaps he's distinguishing between the psychology of conscience and the theology of conscience... his typology suggests so. 

One must depend utterly on the mercy of God... hmm.  I think that's true so far as it goes: if you believe that God is hostile to you, you shouldn't be easy in your mind (no matter how you define "god"). 

But I think Thielicke has in mind rather that one must approach that mercy through some specific agency, and if so, then it doesn't matter whether the conscience is troubled or not, it should be unless it has perfect faith in God's mercy in the right way or through the right agency. 

And if that's what he means, that quotation points to the fact that Christianity depends for its existence on perpetuating shame and guilt in order that it might be the only thing that can cure it.

Curious imagination.