The Last Judgment Is Poorly Entrusted to the State

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With the «Galileo affair», it might seem that everything about «freedom of speech and religion» has already been said. Yet this impression is misleading. It is often overlooked that there was a time when Christians did not hold political power through an alliance with the state. This refers to the first centuries, when they lived within the Roman Empire. At that time, Christians stood on the side of freedom of expression.

In the pagan state, followers of Jesus initially tried to survive by declining the «offers» made by the state. They avoided the circus games, where people were killed for entertainment. They also refrained from participating in sacrifices to the gods or from professions such as that of the sculptor, whose work involved producing statues of the gods.

This «liberal» behavior, the choice not to exercise available rights, worked well until the state became religiously intrusive. It demanded from Christians a declaration of loyalty, in the spirit of what might be called a dictatorship of relativism. They were not asked to renounce their faith, but they were required to add the established state religion to their beliefs and to offer sacrifice to the emperor, who was regarded as a quasi divine figure. Many Christians refused. Thousands were killed as a result. As the apologist Tertullian, who died around the year 220, famously observed, the blood of the martyrs became the seed of Christianity. From today’s perspective one may add that it also became the seed of religious freedom and freedom of expression.

Freedom for the individual

The liberal thinker Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) pointed out that ancient tolerance did not apply to the individual. Rather, tolerance existed between city states in the form of mutual recognition of their respective gods. This did not mean that the individual enjoyed religious freedom. Each person was required to follow the cult of their own state, even if foreign cults were permitted within the city.

The idea of individual freedom of belief was first introduced into the world by Christianity. It broke the ancient framework of the state by anchoring the existence of the individual in the transcendent. The individual was now bound to the laws of his God: render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s. In this way the individual was removed from the total power of the state. It represented the first separation of powers in history, preceding the modern forms of institutional separation of powers. The associated creation of the idea of freedom of conscience became the precondition for the individual liberty that we today take for granted. In antiquity it was not taken for granted at all.

Until the second millennium, persecution of religious dissenters remained relatively rare. One reason for this was the parable of the sower who sowed good seed. In the story, an enemy mixes weeds among the good crop. The servants ask their master whether they should pull up the weeds. The answer is: «No, let both grow together until the harvest»(Matthew 13:24–30). The meaning is clear. God reserves the judgment between truth and error for himself, and it will be delivered only at the end of time. Until that day arrives, patience and tolerance must prevail in the world.

When the Church became dominant in the High Middle Ages, however, something occurred that the historian Reinhart Koselleck described as a «temporalization». The Last Judgment was secularized and brought into the present. People now believed themselves capable of determining what was truth and what was error. It was Thomas Aquinas who formulated the impatient thesis that «error» has no right to exist. This doctrine was subsequently used to demand that the state persecute error. Christians now did to others what they themselves had once endured: persecution for the sake of belief. In his essay on tolerance, Voltaire addressed them with a memorable admonition: «If you wish to resemble Christ, become martyrs, not executioners.»

Condorcet later observed that one need not fear the despotism of the clergy alone, but that it becomes dangerous when it joins forces with that of the nobility. This principle can be generalized, including with regard to the present. Religious teachings and other worldviews are rarely a problem in themselves. They may exclude one another and may even fight each other in public debate. Religions and metaphysical doctrines of salvation become dangerous only when they manage to unite with state power. When the state becomes the advocate of a doctrine of salvation and considers itself competent to deny «error» any place, conflicts are inevitable.

If someone is imprisoned because he rejects a theory that contradicts biology, namely the idea that one can change one’s sex, or if a teacher at a public secondary school loses his job because he refuses to address a student according to the student’s self invented gender, the state becomes the persecutor of alleged «errors». Both of these cases have occurred in Switzerland in recent times. An esoteric doctrine intertwined with state power has triumphed over natural science.

The state must remain neutral

Benjamin Constant wrote about freedom of speech: «Error or truth, the thoughts of man are his most sacred property. Error or truth, tyrants and peoples alike are guilty when they attack this property. Whoever, in the name of philosophy, condemns innocent superstition, and whoever, in the name of God, condemns philosophy: both deserve the contempt of honorable men.» From this he concluded that the only way to weaken an opinion is through free criticism. Such criticism requires the absence of any authority or influence from the state as a collective power. For criticism is essentially individual.

From the complex history of freedom of speech within Christianity, the state can learn something today. It is the state that must now guard against bringing the Last Judgment into the present. It must not attempt to divide worldviews into true and false. It must resist the temptation to suppress real or alleged errors in the name of fighting fake news. Instead, it must defend freedom of expression uncompromisingly against all who seek to restrict it. The criticism of worldviews is not a task of the state. It can only be carried out by individuals and by civil society.

If the state remains neutral toward worldviews and religions, they cannot impose their truths through state authority, as happened in the Middle Ages. Religion then ceases to be an instrument of oppression and becomes, as Christianity was in its early centuries, an element of liberation. Benjamin Constant expressed it succinctly: «Whoever seeks absolute power encounters in every religion a boundary that is inconvenient to him.»