Could you give some more information on the heart and the conscience and what ‘written on their hearts’ refers to?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘God’s Power for Salvation’ (2005).

The question stems, of course, from Romans 2:14. It is a good idea to start by looking at the verse again.

For when Gentiles which have no law do by nature the things of the law, these, having no law, are a law unto themselves; in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts . . . (Romans 2:14–15)

The universals

So, let's look at each of the details. The Gentiles, says verse 14, 'have no law', meaning that they do not have the revealed law as given to the Israelites, popularly known as the Ten Commandments plus all the elaborations on the Ten Commandments. The Gentiles have no revealed law in that special sense, in the sense of special revelation. The interesting fact is that, some Gentiles at least, though they have no revealed law, 'do by nature the things of the law'. And that is an observable fact. The law says 'You shall not murder'. Nations that have never heard of Israel nor of Mount Sinai nor of the Ten Commandments do hold that murder is wrong. The ancient Greeks did; the Romans did; there is scarcely a nation on earth that doesn't. They 'do by nature the things of the law'. That is, they observe the law, even though they often break it; they observe by nature the things that are written in what we call the law of Moses—God's revelation.

So, that is number one. What is it talking about? They have no revealed Ten Commandments, so to speak (no law of Moses and all that is involved in it), but 'by nature' they do things that are written in that law. They hold that murder is wrong. They hold that stealing somebody else's wife is wrong. They hold that telling lies in the law court in order to get your opponent condemned unjustly is wrong; the Greeks didn't have the law of Moses, but they held to that principle in their legal system. And the Romans didn't have the law of Moses, but they had some very strict laws on this matter. And there are other examples we could think of. The Gentiles 'by nature' do at least some of the things that are written in the law of Moses, that is, in the revealed law given to Israel by God.

How would you account for the fact that they by nature do the things that are written in the revealed law? Paul's answer is that they 'show the work of the law written in their hearts.' That is, God has put it in their hearts. It is not only the basic sense of right and wrong---the sense that we are aware that some things are right and some things are wrong---but they have a knowledge that certain particular things are right and certain particular things are wrong. And it is universal---put there by the Creator.

Now, this is a very important question, and I'm glad somebody asked it, because you will find many who will say: 'This is only the viewpoint of a limited society. If this were true, there would be evidence of it worldwide.' And the answer is: there is evidence of it worldwide. If you have not read the famous Irishman, C. S. Lewis, on the question then spend a couple of pounds and start to read him on it. He has investigated the ideas on these matters from different parts of history among different peoples and demonstrated how these certain basic principles are indeed universal.

If you meet people that want to say that the things written on the heart are not universal, you will sometimes hear arguments of this particular sort. King Darius, I think it was, centuries ago made a little experiment about the question: 'Are things universal or not?' So, he called some people from India and said, 'What money must I give you to make you burn the bodies of your parents when they die?'

And they said, 'We wouldn't do it for love nor money! To burn them would be a horrible thing to do! No, we eat the bodies of our dead parents.'

So, then he called some Greeks and said, 'What money must I give you to eat the bodies of your parents when they die?'

They said, 'We would never do it for love nor money. We burn our dead!'

And so, King Darius, with his limited intelligence and logic, decided that these things are not universal; it depends on what society you're brought up in. It escaped him completely that both these peoples were expressing one fundamental thing: you must honour your parents. One lot did it by eating them when they died; the other lot did it by burning them when they died, but they were all intent on one and the same thing: their duty to honour their dead parents. If one group had said 'Burn our dead relatives? Of course not! Once they're dead, we throw them on the scrap heap!' Well, that would have been a different attitude, wouldn't it? It would have been not honouring the dead. But both were honouring, only they did it in different ways.

That kind of thing should not confuse us. There is a general law that you shall not do your neighbour any harm if you can avoid it. That is a general law and known to everybody. Now, in most countries it is not optional which side of the road you drive on. Of course, in some countries it would appear that it is optional which side of the road you drive your car on, and you can do it one way or the other way, just as you please! But if that were allowed in a city like Belfast, of course there would be innumerable car accidents, and people would get killed. The general law 'you shall not do your neighbour any harm if you can avoid it' has to be translated into regulations. And so, in Belfast the regulation is that you drive on the left. In America (well, they can't help it) the regulation is that you drive on the right. It would be stupid to say, 'Well, there you are, you see. The thing is not universal. You can drive in the left in one country, and on the right in another. That shows that all these things are merely determined by your society.'

But that is to miss the point. The regulations are determined this way or that way. The basic rule that they are putting into effect is 'you shall not do your neighbour any harm if you can avoid it'. That is universal. And this is a thing that we need to be able to argue with our modern friends who have been trained, right from the start, that what is right and wrong depends on your society. It is not so; these things are universal.

There is a quotation, if you've never come across it, from ancient Egyptian custom. It comes, I think, from 'The Book of the Dead'. So, when they laid out a corpse and mummified it, some of the Egyptians at least were in the habit of adding a little book, a statement on the corpse, in which the corpse declared his good deeds. It was because they thought the deceased was going to the final judgment. And this book would declare his claim that the final judgment should show him mercy. It has nothing to do with the Old Testament or the law of Moses or anything of the sort. This is their pagan custom, but they did believe in the final judgment.

And so, a man, has it, as if he were writing in his own name: 'I have not done anybody any wrong. I have not lied. I have not committed adultery. I have not cheated on the grain measure. I have not . . .', and there is a whole list. Many of the items are expressing the same sentiments as you will find in the law of Moses.

These things, written on our hearts by the Creator, are universal. It's no good people complaining that this is intolerant, and 'this is your prejudice and pride'. The laws of arithmetic are universal. And if you want to be detailed in your argument, then show yourself aware that we follow a decimal system, whereas the ancient Babylonians followed a sexagesimal system. We go in tens; they went in sixties. We follow them partly, don't we? A circle has how many? Yes, three hundred and sixty degrees, thanks to the Babylonians, of course. That's a sexagesimal system. The fact is that the Babylonians had a sexagesimal system in arithmetic, and we had another system, until the modern Europeans compelled us 'superior English' to go over to decimalisation. We had twelve pence to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound, and all those lovely things. (Never mind about that! I wander.) The fact is that now we have a different system: a decimal system. The ancient Babylonians had a sexagesimal system. But that proves nothing about the basic laws of arithmetic: they are common and universal.

Conscience

Perhaps I have answered what you are talking about when you talk about laws 'written on the heart'. The other part of the question is, 'What has conscience to do with this?'

Well, 'the heart' stands for the deepest part of men, and there these laws are written. They are not said to be 'written on his conscience'. Conscience is that internal mechanism that God has put within us. We didn't invent it. Nobody invented it. It was put there by God the creator as part of the human makeup.

Conscience is the instrumentation that watches what we do with these basic laws. If we propose to do something that is contrary to those laws, whether we like it or not we find we have a mechanism within us that witnesses to this: 'Hey, that's not right!' Conscience will tell us that. And conscience will forewarn us that, 'If you do it, you will get yourself into trouble.' And if we persist in doing it, conscience will make us feel guilty. What for? For having gone against one of those basic laws written on our hearts. So, there is a difference between the law written on the heart and the conscience.

You might ask why we should bother to make that distinction. It is because people will face you and say, 'Adultery? I have no conscience about adultery.'

Well, alas, that's true; they don't have any conscience because they've obliterated the conscience so many times that it doesn't work anymore. It doesn't mean that down below, deep in their hearts, the law isn't written. It's just that they have so brutalized the conscience that it doesn't work. But the law is still written on the heart.

Related to this suppressing what the conscience says, I was recommending a book in the lunch break that is useful for its records of case studies of women who have had abortions and knew it to be wrong when they were having them, and the effect it has on them subsequently—on the way they talk and what they do. It accounts for the fact that many of the medical staff, at least in America, who have assisted in abortions, go on drugs or resign because they can't stick it anymore.

We make a distinction then between conscience: the mechanism that warns us if we are going to do something that is against the basic law, or gives us a sense of guilt when we have done things against the basic law (a conscience that can be sat upon so much that it ceases to work) and the basic law written on the heart.