Conscience: The Period After the Fall

The second dispensation, Conscience, begins immediately after the Fall of Adam and Eve. This dispensation marks a critical shift in human history, as humanity’s perfect relationship with God is broken, and the knowledge of good and evil enters the world. In this new era, God allows humanity to be guided by their conscience, which serves as an internal moral compass to discern right from wrong. However, despite this gift, humanity’s ability to follow their conscience often becomes corrupted, leading to further moral decline.

The story of the Conscience dispensation begins in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Their disobedience brought sin into the world, and immediately, they experienced shame, guilt, and separation from God. They tried to hide from God, but He pursued them, making it clear that their rebellion had consequences. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden and the perfect state of innocence was lost.

From that point onward, the conscience became the primary way in which humanity would discern moral right and wrong. The conscience is the inner awareness or sense of moral responsibility that every human being possesses, often described in Scripture as a "witness" or "testimony" of God’s law written on the heart (Romans 2:15). During this dispensation, people did not have the written law of God as Moses would later provide. Instead, humanity was left to rely on their conscience to determine what was right or wrong.

In the early days of this dispensation, individuals like Cain and Abel demonstrate the workings of the conscience. Cain, in his jealousy and anger, killed his brother Abel (Genesis 4:8). God confronted Cain, warning him that sin was crouching at his door and that he must overcome it. Cain’s failure to heed this warning shows the limitations of the conscience—while it points to right and wrong, it does not automatically lead to righteous living. Instead, it can be easily ignored or suppressed, as Cain's actions reveal.

As humanity progressed, the influence of sin continued to grow. The Bible describes how people increasingly followed their own desires and evil thoughts, and by Genesis 6, the world had become so corrupt that “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). This moral degradation, despite the existence of conscience, demonstrates that while the conscience can guide, it does not guarantee obedience to God’s will. The corruption of the human heart led to the need for God’s judgment, and the Flood was a direct response to the overwhelming wickedness on the earth.

In the midst of this darkness, God found one man, Noah, who "found favor in the eyes of the Lord" (Genesis 6:8). Noah was a righteous man who followed his conscience and obeyed God's commands, even when the rest of humanity had abandoned God’s moral guidance. God spared Noah and his family, instructing him to build an ark to preserve life through the coming judgment.

The Conscience dispensation highlights the tension between the divine moral law written on the human heart and humanity’s repeated failure to follow it. It teaches that while conscience is a God-given gift, it is insufficient on its own to lead people to righteousness. Sin distorts the conscience, making it possible for people to suppress the truth and embrace evil (Romans 1:18-32).

This period of human history underscores the importance of divine revelation and external guidance, which would come later through the written law given to Moses and ultimately through Jesus Christ. The failure of humanity to live according to the dictates of conscience makes clear the need for God’s redemptive plan, which would fulfill the longings of the human heart for true righteousness.

In conclusion, the Conscience dispensation reveals the limitations of human self-governance without direct revelation from God. It demonstrates that although humanity was created with a moral compass, sin distorts that compass, leading to greater moral decline. This period sets the stage for the necessity of further divine intervention, which will be more clearly seen in the following dispensations.