“Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.”
But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. — The 'weak' (ho asthenēs) lack the gnōsis (knowledge) that idols are nothing. Their syneidēsis (conscience) remains bound to the old pagan identity; eating idol food reactivates pagan associations, defiling them (miaínō). The weak believer's conscience is actively wounded by the practice. Paul identifies conscience not as mere subjectivity but as real moral register needing protection and rehabilitation.
Church Fathers on 1 Corinthians 8:7
“But not in all is knowledge,” says he. What knowledge does he mean? About God, or about things offered in sacrifice to idols? For either he here glances at the Greeks who say that there are many gods and lords, and who know not Him that is truly God; or at the converts from among Greeks who were still rather infirm, such as did not yet know clearly that they ought not to fear idols and that “an idol is nothing in the world.” But in saying this, he gently soothes and…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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