The Theology of Religious Liberty

Abstract

"On 7 December 1965, the Roman Catholic Church, acting through the Second Vatican Council, declared that "the human person has aright to religious freedom. Freedom of this kind means that all persons should be immune from coercion on the part of individuals, social groups and every human power so that, within due limits, nobody is forced to act against his convictions in religious matters in private or in public, alone cir in associations with others". This freedom is "based on the very dignity of the human person as known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself .... Religious freedom must be given such recognition in the constitutional order of society as will make it a civil right" .1 With this declaration the Roman Church departed, against some opposition, from its ancient policies which asserted both that "error has no rights" 2 and that it is the duty of governments to uphold and support the true church and its teachings against alternatives. It is unfortunately the case that the Christian Church was "the first teacher of the totalitarian State at nearly every point"3 • But a position which once was a heresy, and then a civil disability, has now become the standard orthodoxy"