When I deeply love God, my conscience become more delicately adjusted, much more sensitive and responsive. Nor is this any wonder, for now my conduct is no longer determined by whether I should do this or that (my duty, for example), but I do it to please God. At first it is hard for me (even after I have become a Christian!) to work with someone who is disagreeable or whose character is dubious. It irks me to be open to someone like that, to give him a chance, and to speak an encouraging word to him. But now (even thought it still goes against the grain) I remember that Jesus Christ himself died for this man and that God grieves over him and wants to save him. Because I love God, my heart will beat with the Father's heart. Thus, I cannot do otherwise than accept and be "there" for this person with whom my Father does not think himself to good to associate. And when I fail to do this, when I simply cannot manage it, then I do not merely have a sense of moral failure, but rather I am sad because I have grieved God. When you love someone very much, his pain becomes your own pain. This is the reason why there is no more sensitive conscience than that of a person who loves God. It registers every shadow that passes over the heart of God. (6,7)
At first, this sounds no different than any other popular preacher's appeal printed in a thousand middlebrow paperbacks. But there is more to it than devotional good feeling. There is an ethic here. He soundly dismisses the Kantian deontology of müssen and duty. And, in its place, suggests a relational ethic that seems more like the personalism of Buber or Habermas. There isn't enough in this quotation to make it a Christian ethic, unless we give it the benefit of unspoken context. Nevertheless, if one squints a little, if the language is altered here and there, Thielicke could be an Eckhart or a Theresa of Avila. He could be a devoted lowland Beguine. Or, were the language developed and made sophisticated, maybe even an Augustine.
