Clearly, conscience plays a very important role. But with that said, a person’s conscience is not an inerrant or infallible guide, for it is possible for one’s conscience to be mistaken…as the Westminster Confession of Faith rightly says, the Bible alone is to be our “Final Umpire.”

The Wesleyan Quadrilateral vs. The Presbyterian Pentagon
There’s a helpful and well-known method for indulging in theological reflection called ‘The Wesleyan Quadrilateral’. Consistent with its geometric shape, each of its four sides represent four different aspects of ‘authority’, namely; Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience. The point is that when it comes to deciding an issue, one of these things will be determinative.
But I’ve recently come to see—especially through COVID—that the model is insufficient and that there is a fifth side which should be added. This is the aspect of ‘Conscience’ and as such, I’d like to suggest renaming the paradigm to The Presbyterian Pentagon. The reason I’ve made it denominationally specific is because the doctrinal standard of the Presbyterian Church—Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF)—is somewhat unique in its emphasis upon the place of conscience in the Christian life.
This is seen in Chapter 20: Christian Liberty, section 2 which states:
God alone is lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the teachings and commandments of men that are in any way contrary to his word, or beside it, in matters connected with faith or worship. As a result, to believe such teachings, or to obey such commandments, as a matter of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience. And the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason as well.
And in the Australian edition of the WCF there is an additional section found in the addendum of The Declaratory Statement regarding the Civil Magistrate (vi) which adds the further clarification:
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Written by J. V. Fesko |
Monday, August 1, 2022
Accountability is only as good as the truth. If you want to grow in your sanctification, you have to be honest with Christ, yourself, your family, and your church. When you’re honest and admit your sins, your need for Christ, and your need for assistance, then you can begin to deal with your need for repentance and greater sanctification.

Part of my pastoral ministry involved making regular visits with the members of my congregation. My elders and I did our best to visit every household in the congregation once a year. There were and are a number of benefits to doing this. First, it allowed me as the pastor to get to know my sheep. It is very difficult to get to know people if the only interaction you have with them is on Sunday when you spy their faces from the pulpit or when you see them across the buffet line at church lunch. I would spend a portion of my visit with the household getting to know them. Second, it was an opportunity for me as the pastor and my elders to be present in a home before there was trouble. It is a bit difficult to enter into a home for the very first time when you have to deal with a problem. People might not trust you, know you, or be willing to listen to your counsel because you have not established much of a relationship with them. True, regardless of these things, members of a church have the biblical responsibility to submit to their elders (Heb. 13:17), but knowing your sheep certainly helps.
However, one of the things that I quickly noted was that when holding members accountable to their profession of faith, accountability was only as good as the truth. What do I mean? On a number of occasions I would observe a family and instinctively know that something was wrong. I saw certain behavior that led me to believe that there were spiritual problems. When an unmarried couple, for example, is very “hands-on,” in public, showing a great degree of public affection, then chances are such behavior is merely the tip of the iceberg—what they do in public is a fraction of how they’ll conduct themselves in private. I visited with such people and flat out asked them about their sexual purity, and I typically received answers, that on the face, were correct—they denied wrong-doing.
I also typically asked the members of my congregation, “Are there any significant struggles, or sins, that we can assist you with, pray for you, and hold you accountable?” I typically received negative replies to this question with the assurances that all was well. Apart from any specific hard-evidence, and only unfounded suspicions, I had no other choice than to take people at their word.
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All theological error originates from the evil one. He is more cunningly skillful than we could ever know at leading people astray through academic and highly nuanced theological error. As is true with every other danger that we face, when we come to study theological error we must remember the words of the Apostle Paul: “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”

There is a profoundly important section titled, “On the Preaching of the Word,” in The Directory for the Public Worship of God, in which we find a very short and very wise statement about the minister’s responsibility to refute false teaching in the church. What is most captivating about the brief statement found therein is that it instructs concerning, first, the dangers of talking about false teaching, and, second, the necessity of refuting false teaching in the church.
As the Divines unfolded their beliefs about how ministers should approach the aspect of refuting theological error in their preaching, they wrote:
In confutation of false doctrines, he [i.e. the minister] is neither to raise an old heresy from the grave, nor to mention a blasphemous opinion unnecessarily: but, if the people be in danger of an error, he is to confute it soundly, and endeavor to satisfy their judgments and consciences against all objections.
The rationale for this statement is dependent on understanding the nature of false teaching itself. In short, ideas can and often do have massive spiritual consequences. J. Gresham Machen made the important statement about the implications of false teachings and ideologies when he wrote:
False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel…What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. In that second stage, it has gone too far to be combated; the time to stop it was when it was still a matter of impassioned debate.1
Since beliefs inevitably have consequences on our lives and actions, the Divines first warn against our “raising an old heresy from the grave, nor to mention a blasphemous opinion unnecessarily.” They do not say this to be necessarily or fearfully censorious, or to bury their heads in the sand rather than deal with difficult theological matters. Rather, they raise this warning because of the nature of false teaching.
When I was a young Christian, a friend taught me that “whenever false teaching is taught in a nuanced fashion there is always the danger that some who hear it will be drawn into it.” He went on to explain that this is true within the realm of relationships, as well. Whenever we start to enter into debate with those with whom we disagree we are in danger of becoming more like them–as well as becoming more susceptible to being influenced by their beliefs. It is not guaranteed that this will happen, but it is certainly a very real and ever present danger. Tragically, years after sharing this thought with me, my friend went on to embrace a sinful lifestyle due in part to the public discussions about, and approval of, that particular sin. Additionally, I have watched–with great heaviness of heart–as a minister of the Gospel walked away from Protestantism in the midst of engaging, on church court levels, with men who were being tried for holding to aberrant theological views on the sacraments and soteriology. Whether engagement with sacramentalist views were the cause of his departing from the truth or not, I cannot help but wonder what impact interacting with aberrant teaching had on this particular individual.
This danger must be highlighted within the realm of pastoral ministry in the church. There are some who thrive on debating theological issues. This can be harmful to the members of a church because some members already have misguided beliefs, and some have a very small knowledge of doctrine. In the case of the first group, introducing old heresies can encourage more confusion. I have, time and again, seen individuals start to dabble with heresy because they already had misguided beliefs based on their erroneous knowledge of Scripture. In the case of the latter group, introducing theological error–even in the name of “discernment”–can end in filling the minds of God’s people with falsehood when they ought to be filling their minds with the truth. Far better to teach them the nuances of the truth of Scripture so that they will be able to discern falsehood when confronted with it. You don’t study a counterfeit dollar bill to spot a counterfeit; you study the real dollar currency so that you will be better suited to spot the counterfeit.
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