This action, however, is not determined by conscience but by other criteria to which conscience bears witness. Acts 24:16 ) are used to depict the conscience as affirming right action. The Pauline development of conscience as a monitor of actions and attitudes is particularly noted in the Pastoral Epistles, where adjectives like 'good' ( 1 Timothy 1:5 1 Timothy 1:19 cf. The classical use of this word-group for simple knowledge occurs in ac 5:2, 12:12, and 14:6. The thirty occurrences are almost exclusively Pauline (22, with an additional 5 in Hebrews and 3 in 1 Peter), and eleven of them are in the Corinthian correspondence.

The verb form ( suneidon, sunoida) occurs only four times.

There are thirty occurrences of suneidesis in the New Testament (one more possible usage in a variant on John 8:9 ). Rabbinic Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls are consistent with the Old Testament in their lack of a vocabulary of conscience. the only verbal variations in Job 27:6 and Lev 5:1 ). The only usage of suneidesis in the canonical section of the Septuagint is in Ecclesiastes 10:20, 'Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, or curse the rich in your bedroom, ' where it is clearly used as self-reflection in secret (cf. Consciousness of life was of a relationship between God and a covenant community rather than an autonomous self-awareness between a person and his or her world. The lack of a developed concept of conscience in the Old Testament, as we see later in Paul, may be due to the worldview of the Hebrew person. The Hebrew term for 'heart, ' however, is a prominent term of self-awareness in the Old Testament. There is no Hebrew term in the Old Testament that is a linguistic equivalent for the classical Greek term suneidesis. Conscience also provides a sense of pleasure when we reflect on conformity to our value system. The witness of conscience makes its presence known by inducing mental anguish and feelings of guilt when we violate the values we recognize and apply. Consequently, there is always a sense of struggle in our reflective process. The complex of values with which conscience deals includes not only those we own, but the entire range of values to which we are exposed during life's journey. Conscience is a critical inner awareness that bears witness to the norms and values we recognize and apply. It is part of a person's internal rational capacity and is not, as popular lore sometimes suggests, an audience room for the voice of God or of the devil. Conscience is a term that describes an aspect of a human being's self-awareness.

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