“The paradox is that the natural law is both really known, and really suppressed. Among my Catholic friends, who see the knowledge, I stress the suppression. Among my Reformed friends, who see the suppression, I stress the knowledge. Sometimes people think that suppressed moral knowledge is the same as weakened moral knowledge with weakened power over behavior. On the contrary…pressing down on one’s conscience does not make it weak any more than pressing down a wildcat makes it docile. It only makes it more violent. Its claws are even sharper in a culture with a Christian past, like ours, for then people have more to suppress.”
J. Budziszewski, The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man
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