Certainly, implicit in some of Luther's utterances
is the principle that the believer is responsible to God
alone for his religious beliefs. Long before Luther,
Socrates had felt an inner compulsion to teach what
he believed was the truth, and had held fast to his truth
when accused of corrupting the youth of Athens. But
he had not proclaimed the right of anyone who felt
as he did to act as he had done. His accusers, in any
case, were not concerned to forbid the teaching of
error, nor yet to uphold true beliefs “necessary to
salvation,” but to maintain outward respect for con-
ventional beliefs and manners. They no more saw
themselves as champions of a true faith than Socrates
saw himself as a martyr for liberty of conscience. And
long before the Reformation, there were Christians
who said that the believer must be allowed to follow
God's Word without hindrance from the temporal
magistrates, and there were accusations of heresy made
against some priests by others (even subordinates in
the hierarchy) and by laymen. Defiance of the church's
authority in matters of faith did not begin with the
Reformation. Yet Luther's doctrine of the priesthood
of all believers was new and formidable. Though there
were traces of it before his time, it was his version
of it that excited and disturbed Christendom in the
West.
It is arguable that Luther's hold on his own doctrine
was not altogether firm, and that he failed to see its
full implications. In practice, he sometimes denied to
others the right to publish religious beliefs widely
different from his own, and it is far from certain that
he did so only because he thought the beliefs dangerous
to the social order and not because he thought them
false and abhorrent to God. In any case, the doctrine
of the priesthood of believers is ambiguous. It invites
the question: Who is to be reckoned a believer? Is
anyone a believer who says that Holy Scripture is the
Word of God, no matter how he interprets it? In that
case, a man might be a Christian though his beliefs
differed more from those of other Christians than from
the beliefs of Mohammed. And if outrageous or absurd
interpretations are condemned as insincere, and the
believer's claim to be recognized and tolerated as such
is rejected on that account, are not those who reject
it saying that, after all, he is answerable to his fellow
men for his beliefs, and not to God alone? Luther never
put to himself such a question as this; he merely took
it for granted that there are limits to what professed
“believers” can be allowed to read into the Scriptures.
In practice he was no more tolerant than Erasmus or
than several other great writers of the age who never
broke away from the old church.
Perhaps the finest plea for toleration made in the
sixteenth century is Castellion's De haereticis, an sint
persequendi, published in 1554. Belief, to be acceptable
to God, must be sincere, which it cannot be, if it is
forced. God is just, and therefore does not make it a
condition of salvation that men should hold uncertain
beliefs long disputed among Christians. Only beliefs
that Christians have always accepted can be necessary
to salvation; and to hold otherwise is to doubt the
goodness of God. To punish men for beliefs they dare
to avow is to risk punishing the sincere and to allow
hypocrites to go unpunished. Castellion's arguments
were directed at Calvin, who only a few months earlier
had had Servetus burned to death as a heretic. Castel-
lion's plea was not only for a wide toleration; he con-
demned extreme measures against any heretic. He was
concerned for the quality of faith, for the spiritual
condition of the believer. Yet he did not advocate full
liberty of conscience; he did not put it forward as a
principle that anyone may hold and publish any reli-
gious beliefs, and may worship God as he pleases,
provided he does not propagate beliefs and indulge
in practices that endanger the peace and the secure
enjoyment of rights.
This principle was not clearly and vigorously as-
serted until the end of the seventeenth century. Years
of controversy and long and painful experience were
needed to bring home to men two lessons: that domes-
tic peace and security do not depend on people having
the same, or even broadly similar, religious beliefs; and
that persecution is unlikely to bring about uniformity
of belief, even though it may silence the heterodox.
The first lesson disposes those who learn it to accept
liberty of conscience on political grounds: let people
hold and publish what religious opinions they choose,
since the attempt to impose religious uniformity en-
dangers the peace more than does religious diversity.
The second lesson disposes them to accept it on reli-
gious and moral grounds: let individuals hold and pub-
lish what religious opinions they choose, since for-
bidding them to do so will not ensure that they accept
with sincerity the opinions of those who impose the
sanctions.
The case for liberty of conscience was refined and
reduced to essentials by Spinoza, Locke, and Bayle.
Spinoza, in the twentieth chapter of his Tractatus
theologico-politicus (1670), asserted man's right to rea-
son freely about everything and said that the sovereign
invades this right if he prescribes to his subjects what
they must accept as true or reject as false. Bayle, in
his Commentaire philosophique sur ces paroles de Jésus-
Christ, “Contrains-les d'entrer” (1686), argued that
coercion in matters of belief encourages hypocrisy and
corrupts society by destroying the good faith on which
it depends. And it is absurd, as some people do, to
condemn persecution when it is harsh and approve it
when it is mild. Since faith is important, heresy, if it
is a crime, must be a serious one and ought to be
severely punished; and if it is not a crime, it ought
not to be punished at all. The conscience that errs has
rights as much entitled to respect as the conscience
that possesses the truth. Even atheists should be toler-
ated; and if Catholics should not be, it is not on account
of their faith, but because they are intolerant. For the
doctrine that heretics should be persecuted is not reli-
gious but political; and it is pernicious because it makes
for disorder and is destructive of good morals.
Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), shorter
than Bayle's Commentary and more popular and less
abstract than Spinoza's argument in the Tractatus, is
the classical apology for liberty of conscience. Though
it does not, any more than does Bayle's Commentary,
put forward new ideas, it is clear and vigorous. Coming
towards the end of a long period of religious wars and
persecutions, it brings together into a coherent and
compelling whole the most solid arguments for reli-
gious liberty. It is an act of completion, the last best
word of its age for a kind of freedom that men had
learned, slowly and painfully, to recognize and to
value.
The proper business of civil government, according
to Locke, is to protect and promote men's interests.
Though everyone has the right to try to persuade others
to hold beliefs which he thinks are true and important,
nobody has the right to use force to that end. The civil
magistrate has no authority from either God or man
to require anyone to profess or refrain from professing
a belief on the ground that it is true or false, necessary
to salvation or incompatible with it. It is not for him
to dispute with his subjects or to persuade them to
a particular religion. Even if he could force them to
adhere to it, he would not thereby save their souls,
for salvation depends on a free adherence to what is
true. A church is no more than an association of men
who come together to worship God in the manner they
think acceptable to him, and no church can claim
authority from God to be the only teacher of the true
faith. Like any other voluntary association it may make
rules for its members, may admonish and exhort them,
and may expel them for disobeying the rules. But it may
not deprive them of their civil rights, or of any rights
other than those they acquire by joining it, nor may
it call upon the civil power to do so. No belief is to
be suppressed merely because it is heretical, nor any
practice merely because it is offensive to God. No
doubt, what is offensive to God is sinful, but what is
sinful is not punishable by man. No man deserves
punishment at the hands of other men, unless he has
offended some man, unless he has invaded his rights.
Locke, in this Letter, seems at times to come close to
saying what J. S. Mill was to say long afterwards: that
men are answerable to civil authority only for their
harmful and not their immoral actions. Yet he does not
say it outright, nor even clearly imply it.
What he does say is that all beliefs are to be tolerated
“unless they are contrary to human society” or to moral
rules “necessary to the preservation of civil society.”
This is not a clear saying. What is to be reckoned
contrary to human society or necessary to the preser-
vation of civil society? Since Locke wrote his Letter,
there have been many attempts to answer this question
or others like it. Locke held that there are rights that
all men have, and we can perhaps ascribe to him the
belief that anything is to be reckoned contrary to
human society if it prevents the exercise of these rights,
either directly or by subverting institutions on which
their exercise depends. It is actions, therefore, rather
than beliefs, that are directly contrary to human soci-
ety. But actions are inspired by beliefs. Are people to
be punished for expressing and publishing beliefs that
inspire harmful actions? Or is it enough that such
beliefs should be combated by argument, and their
attractive power diminished by education?
Locke speaks of moral rules necessary to the preser-
vation of society. Presumably, that promises be kept
is such a rule. Yet all societies distinguish between
enforceable promises (contracts) and promises that are
not enforceable. Nor is the keeping of promises that
are not enforceable any less necessary to the preser-
vation of civil society than the keeping of the others.
In all societies there are rules, supported only by
“moral sanctions,” no less necessary to preserving the
social order than rules the breach of which is a punish-
able offence. If the breaker of these rules is not liable
to punishment, should the man be so who teaches that
they need not be kept—or not in all circumstances?
Locke's Letter closes one stage in the long debate
on freedom of speech and association, and opens an-
other. It puts forward, simply and persuasively, a num-
ber of important principles but goes only a little way
in considering how they should be applied.
