We have been looking at the “strong” and the “weak” in 1 Corinthians 8. Paul affirms that pagan gods do not really exist (verses 4-6), and that eating meat sacrificed to an idol is, ceteris paribus, a matter of moral indifference (verse 8). Paul’s concern in this passage, however, is not mainly about the question of meat sacrificed to idols in the abstract but about how the gospel is changing their lives. The strong stop their thinking and start their eating with the abstract point that meat sacrificed to idols is just meat. Their weaker brothers and sisters do not think of it in those simple terms, however, and they eat while thinking of themselves as somehow participating in idolatry, and their συνείδησις, or conscience, is defiled.
This is not, I don’t think, a guilty conscience. Their conscience goes through two stages, first weak, then defiled. Neither of those has to do with feelings of guilt.
The weak are not doing something they think is wrong. The word συνείδησις comes from a Greek compound meaning knowledge-with, just like it does in Latin: con-scientia, knowledge-with. You may be asking, “knowledge with what or with whom?” and the answer is, with self, with society, or with God. Your conscience keeps you informed about the rightness or wrongness of some action that you did in the past or that you’re contemplating in the future, based on your own, society’s, and God’s values and norms. A person with a guilty conscience is a person whose knowledge of having done something wrong–in the past–gives rise to feelings of guilt. Paul does not say in verse 7 that the weak have a guilty conscience about having done something in the past but that they have a weak (ἀσθενής) conscience that becomes defiled when they eat idol meat:
However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. (1 Corinthians 8:7 ESV)
Let’s analyze what is happening when a weak brother eats idol meat. First, the weak do not possess this knowledge about the non-existence of pagan gods (verses 4-6). At no point in this scenario does a weaker brother really grasp the fact that there is no God but one and that meat is just meat, which the strong understand correctly. Second, “through former association,” the weak person eats the idol meat thinking that he is somehow participating in the worship of the idol in a real way. Third, concurrent with his eating, his conscience is weak. Fourth, as a result of his decision to eat, his conscience becomes defiled.
Some may think that the conscience was weak at first in the sense that it didn’t sound an alarm loud enough to keep the person from doing something he would later feel really guilty about. So he ate. Afterwards, though, he became wracked with guilt, and that’s what Paul means when he says that the weak conscience becomes defiled. A defiled conscience is a guilty conscience, on that view.
But if that’s all this is about, why aren’t Paul’s words in verses 4-6 enough to solve the problem? If the weak are suffering from guilt feelings needlessly, just because they don’t know the truth about God, idols, and meat, then why not just fill them in and offer some comfort and assurance? If the weak brothers actually had a strong scruple against worshiping idols all along; if at the time they ate they were not sinning against their own conscience by doing something they thought wrong (the conscience was then weak, after all); and, if they only developed a feeling of guilty defilement upon later reflection, thinking incorrectly that idols are somehow real and that eating sacrificial meat somehow implicates them in idolatry, even against their will–then why doesn’t Paul just speak to the weak Christians and set them straight? In that scenario, in fact, they haven’t done anything wrong whatsoever! And how could the strong possibly make life decisions based on what someone else might emulate and later feel privately and needlessly guilty about?
I’m not buying it. Paul doesn’t instruct, comfort, and assure the weak in 1 Corinthians 8. In fact, if we take chapter 8 by itself, it appears that he says nothing at all to these supposedly guilt-wracked Christians. Something much more serious is taking place, and both the weak and the strong are truly guilty of very grave sin. In 1 Corinthians 8-10, Paul will address both.
Here’s what I think was happening. I think the weak Christians are recent converts from paganism who misinterpret the actions of the strong as a sign that Christianity is just a syncretistic polytheistic religion like most of the others they would have known in Corinth: Christ is just another god to add to the pantheon of the first-century Mediterranean world. The weak were participating in idolatry knowingly and in good–that’s right, good–conscience because they were inadequately instructed about Christian monotheism. The strong could have and should have realized this, at least by the time Paul comes to learn of it, and yet they apparently do nothing to counteract the wrong signals their eating idol meat is sending to their newest brothers and sisters and the unconverted pagans around them.
That would explain an awful lot of the exegetical problems in 1 Cor 8-10. I’ll say how in my next post.
