Feature
The Furies of Conscience
Denial & the Wages of Sin
Everyone knows that conscience works in two different modes: cautionary and accusatory. In the cautionary mode, it alerts us to the peril of moral wrong and generates an inhibition against committing it. In the accusatory mode, it indicts us for wrong we have already done. The most obvious indictment is the feeling of remorse, but remorse is the least of the five Furies. No one always feels remorse for doing wrong; some people never do. Yet even when we fail to feel remorse, our knowledge of our guilt generates objective needs for confession, atonement, reconciliation, and justification.
These other Furies are the greater sisters of remorse. They are inflexible, inexorable, and relentless, demanding satisfaction even when mere feelings are suppressed, fade away, or never come. And so it is that conscience operates not only in the first two modes but also in a harrowing third: the avenger, which punishes the soul who does wrong but refuses to read the indictment.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
J. Budziszewski is Professor of Government, Philosophy, and Civic Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of several books, including Pandemic of Lunacy: How to Think Clearly When Everyone Around You Seems Crazy (Creed & Culture, 2026).
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on abortion from the online archives
24.1—January/February 2011
How Planned Parenthood's Founder Played the Christians, and Won by Allan C. Carlson
19.1—January/February 2006
on Death & Seven of the Last Words of Socrates by Graeme Hunter
30.3—May/June 2017
on the Misuse of Property Rights to Justify Slavery & Abortion by Robert Hart
more from the online archives
31.5—September/October 2018
on the Congregation as a Wilderness by Paul Gregory Alms
20.6—July/August 2007
The Beowulf Poet Was a Shrewd Christian Apologist by Douglas Wilson
31.4—July/August 2018
on the Brevity & Theology of Her Recorded Words by Judith Anderson
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
