Before his conversion on the Damascus road, did Saul of Tarsus wrestle with a troubled conscience? Now I believe that he did, and have argued for this take in the special issue of Credenda entitled “A Pauline Take on the New Perspective.” I am happy to grant that a troubled conscience in a Pharisee like Saul would not function in exactly the same ways that a troubled conscience in an Augustinian monk like Martin Luther would. But still, I also have no trouble visualizing the similarities.
But perhaps it is this “not exactly the same” element that N.T. Wright points to. “It will not do, historically speaking, to spiritualize or psychologize the event, as though (for instance) Saul had been laboring with a troubled conscience for years and suddenly had a great religious experience which enabled him to throw off the burden and enjoy a new level or dimension of spiritual existence” (What St. Paul Really Said, p. 36).
But Wright’s handling of this event sidesteps the basic issue. The issue is not the psychology of conversion, but rather the need for conversion. I think there are many textual reasons for thinking that Saul was wrestling with his conscience from at least the point in time when he was part of that group that got their lunch eaten by Stephen. But let me waive the point.
Whether Saul had a bad conscience or not, he certainly ought to have had a bad conscience. If he did have one, then his experience is in some significant ways parallel to that of someone like Martin Luther. But if he did not have troubled conscience (and was attacking the people of God with a “clean” and therefore very hardened conscience), this means that he was an extremely wicked man, greatly in need of the profound religious, emotional, spiritual, and psychological conversion that happened to him outside Damascus. And yes, Wright is correct that his doctrine of resurrection in the midst of history also needed to be converted. And it also was.