CONSCIENCE, FREEDOM OF

In a common, although restricted, sense the right to worship God as one prefers. In a more proper and broad usage, however, it denotes the general capacity to follow one's conscience in any matter.

In antiquity, although a large diversity of private beliefs and practices was often tolerated, a right to follow one's conscience on all points was usually not recognized. Even in Greece, the cradle of freedom, citizens had to worship the civic deities. Nevertheless the right to follow conscience was sometimes claimed. In Sophocles' Antigone the obeying of the divine over the human law was implicitly condoned. Plato likewise approved of such a choice (Apol. 28–30). The Stoics provided a systematic basis to justify such views with their doctrine of a natural law that is above all others and teaches the equality and brotherhood of men. The major fruits of this theory, however, appeared only later in the use made of it by Byzantine jurists and medieval thinkers.

The Hebrews, on the other hand, had always been aware of the priority of doing God's will over obedience to man. The Prophets in particular saw this clearly and did not shrink from acting accordingly. The theocratic organization of Israel restricted freedom of choice in religious matters. Yahweh was a jealous God, and His detailed prescriptions provided severe punishments for those who violated them. The characteristic attitude was to require complete obedience to all the minutiae of the Law, and this eventually degenerated into legalism. Nevertheless, the existence of such sects as the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes shows that some diversity of interpretation was allowed.

Christ rejected unduly literal obedience to the law and instead insisted on peaceful and intelligent love of God and men. Hence there arose a keener appreciation of the role of conscience. Previously, conscience had been thought of mainly in its retrospective aspect. In St. Paul its directive function becomes prominent. His treatment of a case of erroneous conscience (1 Cor 8.9–13) implied two principles: even though conscience is fallible, one should always act according to it, and one should not do violence to the conscience of others. Thus, at first Christians commonly held that all are by natural law free to follow their conscience and that punishments for religious offenses should be left to God. Nevertheless, the early Church did not practice an unlimited tolerance, but it applied only the spiritual sanction of excommunication. Then the Church changed its attitude in the fourth and fifth centuries after it gained its legal freedom and became the established church. It regarded heresy and schism as serious social evils to be punished by the state. This was the view of Augustine, Chrysostom, and Jerome.

In the Middle Ages the Church adhered more firmly to some of its views. It is true that it continued to acknowledge that because faith cannot be forced, non-Christians (i.e., Jews and pagans) were free to follow their beliefs, as long as they did not attempt to pervert true religion. On the other hand, it came to look on heresy and schism as dangerous sins and crimes, since they destroy the unity of both the faith and the social order. The medieval Church, therefore, advocated the death penalty for those who remained obstinate in error, and established the Inquisition to hunt them out.

At the same time, however, progress was made in solving the theoretical issues. Questions about freedom of conscience could be answered only if the nature and functions of conscience were understood. The first treatises on it were written only in the middle of the 13th century; they were full of inconsistencies and often contradicted each other. St. Thomas Aquinas worked out widely accepted solutions. He pointed out (Summa theologiae 1a2ae, 19) that the will is good (or evil) only insofar as it tends to what is thought good (or evil). He held, therefore, that one should always follow his conscience, and that an act resulting from an invincibly erroneous conscience is free from guilt; but he did not admit this act to be good. Moreover, he accepted the common opinion that invincible errors arise only in certain unusual cases. He argued elsewhere that Jews and pagans should be tolerated and not forced into the Church. He considered heretics and apostates, however, to be necessarily cognizant of their fault, and so subject to the severest penalties.

The bloody persecutions and religious wars following the Reformation led to a rethinking of these problems. The Protestants worked out the widest variety of arguments, of unequal merits, both pro and con. Many Catholics came to see that the possibilities of error in good faith were much wider than they had been thought previously. They also concluded, from Aquinas's principles, that all conscientious acts are at least subjectively good. Accepting the legitimacy of toleration, they did not, however, advocate full freedom of conscience; they were suspicious of it because of its defense by Protestants, Deists, and "Liberals," on latitudinarian, indifferentist, and relativist grounds. But with the maturing of democratic life after 1800, Catholics and others became increasingly aware of the validity of holding to it on practical grounds: as required by charity, civic peace, democratic government, and especially the integrity of human dignity and of the divine plan. It was maintained that God gave man an intellect and will that he might freely and responsibly work out his own individual salvation.

Among the most dramatic events of Vatican Council II was the conflict that ended with a large majority favoring the Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis humanae ), thus rejecting the "thesis-hypothesis" theory on religious freedom that had been widely accepted for a century. The Declaration produced several noteworthy results: it achieved doctrinal unity on the point that religious freedom is a universal and natural right; it eliminated a major source of tension with non-Catholics; it fostered a less triumpha list and more humble spirit among Catholics.

The Council's action also cast new light on various theological issues. The establishment of a state religion is seen to be inconsistent with full religious liberty, since it places pressures, open or subtle, on dissidents. There is at least a verbal contradiction between Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors and the Declaration on Religious Freedom : this requires explanation in terms of the meaning of the theory of development of doctrine. Since the right to freedom of conscience results from man's dignity as a free, rational agent, which precludes that he ever be forced to act contrary to his conscience, difficult questions arise about the nature and limits of discipline within the Church; the cases of Abp. Lefebvre and Hans Küng well illustrate the range and type of issues involved. Other problems arise in regard to mixed marriages, e.g., some requirements imposed in the past are now seen to be inconsistent with the Church's due respect for individual freedom, but there remains the question of how such freedom is to be combined with safeguarding the faith.

Bibliography: j. e. e. dalberg-acton, The History of Freedom and Other Essays, ed. j. n. figgis and r. v. laurence (London 1909) 1–60. j. lecler, Toleration and the Reformation, tr. t. l. westow, 2 v. (New York 1960). e. d'arcy, Conscience and Its Right to Freedom (New York 1962). John XXIII Pac Terr. e. j. m. de smedt, "Religious Liberty," Catholic Mind 62 (Feb. 1964) 54–63. Vatican Council II, session 4. j. lecler et al., Religious Freedom, Concilium 18 (New York, 1966) with helpful bibliographical survey. e. mcdonagh, Freedom or Tolerance? (Albany 1967). h. madelin, "La Liberté religieuse et la sphère du politique," Nouvelle revue théologique 97 (1975) 110–126, 914–939. o. murdick, "Religious Freedom: Some New Perceptions in Light of Vatican II," Religious Education (1976) 416–426. j. c. murray, ed., Religious Liberty: An End and a Beginning (New York 1966).

[g. j. dalcourt]