The Egyptians, along with people earth wide, realized that adultery was a grave moral offense. Their oldest religious texts associated the Last Judgment with the weighing of the “heart.” And over what was one judged? The ancient Egyptian “Book of the Dead” depicts the deceased as declaring his innocence, saying, ‘I have not robbed. I have not killed men. I have not lied. I have not defiled any man’s wife.’ So, it must be that conscience led them to sense the wrongness of adultery.

A similar effect of a smitten conscience is mentioned in an ancient cuneiform tablet that gives the prayer of a Babylonian who had sinned. He implored his god to listen “on account of his breast, which complains like a resounding flute.”

12. (a) So, what can correctly be concluded about the faculty of conscience, as pointed out by the apostle Paul? (b) Is conscience manifested by all people?

¹² All of this shows that we have a conscience because of inheriting intelligence and a moral sense from Adam. Thus, even nations that knew nothing of the Mosaic law, given by God, forbade things such as stealing, lying, incest, murder and adultery. Yes, though they “do not have law,” they “do by nature the things of the law.” The apostle Paul highlighted the basis for their moral standards, saying, “their conscience [Greek, syneiʹdesis] is bearing witness with them and, between their own thoughts, they are being accused or even excused.” (Rom. 2:14, 15) So universal is the God-given faculty of conscience that one encyclopedia states: “No culture has yet been found in which conscience is not recognized as a fact.” And regarding individuals who seem to “have no conscience,” Dr. Geoffrey Stephenson wrote: “It was, and still is by some, regarded as a genuine form of insanity or psychosis.”​—Compare Titus 1:15.

CONSCIENCE​—ITS OPERATION AND TRAINING

13. Why is more needed than just knowing that we have a conscience?

¹³ Hence, can we simply “do by nature the things of the law”? No, more is needed. Just understanding the true source of conscience and how it is that we have that faculty does not assure us that we are fully benefiting from it. Recall that the ancient Egyptians had certain moral standards that manifested the effects of conscience. But was that sufficient in itself? Did that alone protect them from every improper thing? Their repulsive worship of animals, rendering “sacred service to the creation rather than the One who created,” proves that merely having a degree of conscience was not sufficient. (Rom. 1:20-25) Consequently, we need to know more than just that we have a conscience. We ought to know how it operates, how it can be trained and what God says about our using it in daily life.