Refutation of Peter Kreeft's "Argument from Conscience"
http://peterkreeft.com/topics/conscience.htm

Kreeft's summary is basically a formal syllogism, so I will format it as one:

P1. Conscience has absolute, exceptionless, binding moral authority over us, demanding unqualified obedience.
P2. Only a perfectly good, righteous divine will has this authority and a right to absolute, exceptionless obedience.
C. Therefore conscience is the voice of the will of God.

(Note: the inescapable conclusion if P1 & P2 were true is that the conscience IS God. That should tell you right there how sound this argument is.)

P1 is false. Kreeft defines conscience to be that way, but admits that others do not. "The modern meaning tends to indicate a feeling that I did something wrong." That is the what we actually observe to exist. The rest is simply assertion. But included in his definition is that all humans have knowledge of an absolute obligation to holiness. I do not have knowledge of this obligation, therefore P1 is false.

There's no need to continue, but I can.

P2 is simply assertion. He "supports" it by adding the superfluous words "absolute" and "binding". Conscience isn't absolute. Different people have different moral intuitions; it's rare that two people agree. Conscience isn't binding. People are free to go against it, and billions do every day. Then they feel bad, because conscience is their feeling of what they should have done. No magic involved.

The conclusion is of course unproven, since it's based on false premises, but it's also absurd. Psychopathic killers clearly refute this argument, since they do not feel remorse. Their conscience, if they have one, is not binding on them. Redefining "conscience" so that psychopaths follow a "conscience" that tells them they should murder leaves you with not only tautology, but absurdity:

P1(a). Conscience is the voice of the will of God.
P2(a). The will of God must be obeyed
C(a). Therefore, if your conscience tells you to murder, you must do it.

If you say that genetics or abuse or evil spirits can alter what your conscience tells you what to do, then conscience is clearly not the voice of the will of an omnipotent God.

This is not a good argument at all.

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