Page 2 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 10

Editorial

Editorial

“Conscience without God is something horrifying. It can stray into the
greatest immorality.”
(Dostoevsky in „A Writer’s Diary „ - 1873 and 1876-1881)

In 2017 Germany is celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Refor-
mation, supposedly initiated by Martin Luther’s nailing the theses
to the door in Wittenberg. This is probably a legend, like the story
that in 1521 he loudly proclaimed in Worms, before the Emperor
and Papal delegates, “Here I stand, I can do no other.”: the starting
signal for the freedom of the conscience, each man according to his
conscience. But this is certainly not what Luther wanted, for he also
anchored the conscience in God’s word:
werner.may@ignis.de
“… thus, by passages of Holy Scripture, … I have been overcome in
my conscience and captured in God’s Word. Therefore I cannot and
will not retract anything, because it is neither safe nor salutary to do
anything against one’s conscience. God help me, Amen!”

Besides theologians and philosophers, leading psychologists have
also looked into the subject of the conscience: Freud’s super-ego
conscience, Jung’s self or individuation conscience, the cognitive
psychologists such as Piaget and Kohlberg, who tended more stron-
gly in the direction of developmental psychology, and more recently
explorations of the conscience as moral emotion.

In this edition of Christian Psychology Around The World, the
subject matter is also the conscience – from the angle of the theory Martin Luther’s 95
and practice of Christian psychology, especially in counselling and theses were published
therapy. A fascinating point here is that the authors come from dif- on 31 October 1517.
ferent confessional backgrounds, while also being anchored in their The historicity of
various cultures. Luther’s nailing of the
95 Theses to the door
Besides the numerous contributions and comments, I was very ple- of the castle church in
ased that Roberto Cipollone was willing to make his works availa- Wittenberg on the same
ble for the background to this issue. Ultimately, these represent an day is contested.
exhortation to our conscience not to disregard even the smallest of
matters.

Yours,
Werner May

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