Why Freedom of Conscience?

Society dare not disregard, nor treat with disdain the voice of conscience, for if it does, it shall wilt and wither with the beguiling winds of circumstance - and die. Conscience must be immutable, impervious to change, like the house built upon a rock which weathers the fierce storm and does not fall.

To define freedom of conscience, one must first believe that such a thing as freedom can be defined - I wrote in my essay on freedom, that in fact freedom defies definition, since, like love, it is a yearning of the soul.

I shall also not attempt to define conscience, although such attempts have regularly been made in academies and theological schools of learning. A six year old child understands perfectly well what the words “good” or “naughty” mean by relating it to living examples of use, without the need to learn a definition of these words. When someone exclaims, “my conscience does not allow me to do this,” both the speaker and the hearer know exactly what the meaning is. Likewise, “have a conscience, man!” Or, “how did his conscience allow him to do that?” Or, “I could never live with my conscience.”

The inherent, innate voice of conscience and the ability of a human being to discern right from wrong and to want to do what is right is present in every race, every nation, every religion. Even the atheist claims to possess it. Conscience, it would appear, is not contingent upon a belief in God. It is a strong argument for the presence of God in human affairs, but it continues to act in those who do not believe.

Conscience may be suppressed, strangled, ignored, but as an ever present reminder of man’s cosmic inheritance, it has always towered over the wrecks of circumstance and chance and survived every attempt to talk, torture or coax it out of existence.

Freedom of conscience is specifically and explicitly protected by multiple legal documents and proclamations, including the Canadian Charter of Rights And Freedoms and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Most often, freedom of conscience is spoken of in the same breath as religious liberty.

Typically, religion has grown out of conscience - the individual discerning with a sense of awe and wonder that there already lies within him or her this persistent, often inconvenient voice for good. The soul then embarks upon a more or less sincere search for the source of good or evil, leading the individual and society in turn, to embrace God the Source of good - and reject evil.

We have all heard, “I am not religious,” or “I have no religion;” but not, “I have no conscience!” Conscience therefore, is a more fundamental stirring within us than religion. It may lead inexorably and inevitably to religion - but even if it does not, it continues to claim a moral obligation to do what is right and just and good and to reject what is unjust and wrong and bad.

For the believer, conscience is bound to God, and therefore is tantamount to religious freedom. For the unbeliever or atheist, freedom of conscience is also, in fact, the same as freedom of religion, although not acknowledged as such - for atheism too, must have a system of beliefs. There is therefore no excuse in law or in life, for not equally respecting freedom of conscience in the atheist and in those who claim a religion.

Religious liberty is limited in some instances, by society and the state and by shared ideas of morality - for example, nobody can be permitted to carry out human sacrifice, claiming to belong to a particular religious cult. Society, in such cases, empowers the state to act on its behalf and stop and punish the perpetrator of crime. Note however, that in limitations of the right to religious liberty, the individual or group makes the first move - and the law and the state then move in to stop the criminal act.

In the exercise of freedom of conscience however, the tables are turned - and the individual is seeking to protect himself or herself from the authorities (including employment authorities) or from state/governmental power. When the authorities move first in this fashion and launch their assault on freedom of conscience, the individual must in turn be protected by a system (including such instruments as the Charter of Rights And Freedoms and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) that society must recognize as surpassing and superseding the rights and powers of the state. By the recognition of freedom of conscience as a fundamental principle of freedom, a free society thus empowers its members to refuse to obey the dictates of a dictatorial state.

No spurious argument serves the charlatan better than the argument that the “common good” must take precedence over freedom of conscience and religion in times of war or other “emergency.” This has repeatedly been the favoured tool of tyrants who can themselves both define the conditions for war or “emergencies” and then launch wars and emergency measures that are frontal assaults on morality, freedom and freedom of conscience and religion.

Emergencies also include those that are declared in the name of health. The “common good,” is most often invoked as an abstract concept without scientific backing, to oppress and coerce the people into actions that cause direct harm to themselves and to their family and friends.

Tyrants know only too well that a naive and compliant society can be deluded into believing that all the harms inflicted on them, including the assaults on freedom and freedom of conscience, are being done in service of an ill-defined “common good.” By repeating the harms, the “common good” delusion is normalized and people become desensitized to the loss of freedom.

Colonialism was redefined as being necessary for the “common good.” Both in Britain and in India for example, this bizarre and absurd doctrine was repeated and promoted by polite society and by the propaganda arms of government - the press and other media. Only after the conscience of both the oppressed and the oppressor in India was awoken from its long slumber by Mahatma Gandhi, was the struggle for freedom ignited.

In China, and the Soviet Union, many millions were murdered by their own governments who proclaimed the “common good” of socialism and communism in a continuous reign of terror lasting several decades.

And in Nazi Germany, many ordinary Germans believed the government propaganda that the “common good” would be served by the elimination of the “untermensch” - the disabled, other races and homosexual people.

For the ancient Druids of England and in Mayan and Aztec culture, human sacrifice was also deemed to be for the common good. Although modern societies completely forbid this grotesque abuse of freedom, the sacrifice of our soldiers in cruel and unjust wars can be construed as a more sophisticated form of human sacrifice. Should not then, the individual have the right to refuse to go to war as a matter of the exercise of freedom of conscience?

For more than a hundred years, Western nations have recognized the rights of the conscientious objector not to bear arms and not to join in the actions of the nations’ armed forces that involve the killing of other human beings. In retrospect the scruples of conscience of the conscientious objector have often proved correct - and most wars have been fought not in self-defence, but for the exploitation of people or resources. For the conscientious objector, if the right to life is a fundamental right, the taking of that life whether in war or in peace, mitigates against his or her conscience. The courts of law have recognized however, that the pacifist must exercise this freedom of conscience universally, to all wars and cannot be selective in his choice of war - eg. the pacifist is not permitted to claim that fighting in the Iraq war was against his conscience, but taking part in the NATO bombardment of Serbia was permitted!

The central and overriding place of the conscience in human affairs is also very well illustrated by the term, “prisoner of conscience.” The individual thus imprisoned is recognized by large sections of society as being unjustly punished on account of the call of conscience - justice then demands that this prisoner be set at liberty. As I write this, the heroic Australian journalist Julian Assange is a prisoner of conscience in England and is being persecuted because his conscience did not allow him to ignore the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by our Western nations in Iraq and other countries.

The timeless, lyrical, celebrated verse in scripture, where Jesus asks the people to “render therefore unto Cesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s,”also means that Jesus is telling us to render unto Caesar (the authorities, governments) the “things that are Caesar’s” (eg.taxes, just laws), but no more than the things that are Caesar’s.

And Caesar must not ever seek to take the things that are God’s, including the voice of conscience.