Abstract

Josef Bordat:
Law of Nature and Conscience
(FKTh 2014-4, p. 261–277)

Natural law and conscience are internaly connected: the natural law is the fundament of legislation, discovered by the subject's conscience. Thomas Aquinas has described this relation. Under the influence of Protestantism the link between natural law and conscience has got lost. It was the Second Vatican Council that rehabilitated it, making the concept of conscience again available for Catholic morality. The compromise between subject's and object's perspective causes in practice, however, problematic results if it is neglected that also the decisions made by conscience should remain engaged to moral truth.