“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.
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