Do adherents ever have religious or sincerely-held beliefs that are different from or in addition to those beliefs established by the religious community that they profess to belong to?
The first question before us has to do with the relationship of the individual to his or her religious tradition. Specifically: Do people ever have religious or sincerely held beliefs that are different from, or in addition to, those beliefs established by the religious community to which they profess to belong?
Individual believers clearly hold particular views about how to live and are generally not considered to have compromised their faith if their scruples demand stricter or lighter adherence in certain matters. It would be foolish to assume a congregation of believers is composed of individuals whose beliefs are completely identical.
In fact, from its origins, Christianity has understood this, and insisted that individual members’ views be respected by the larger community, as an expression of the person’s faith and conscience. A man named Paul, one of the authors of Christian Scripture, provided the foundational statement of this principle,
Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall. So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin (Romans 14:19–23)
These words are directly relevant to our present considerations. Paul is counseling those who feel free to eat as they please. He tells them not to tempt or judge brothers and sisters whose conscience forbids eating certain foods. Obviously, an employer is not in the same position as a fellow member of an employee’s religious community. However, the relevant matter here is that individuals clearly may have divergent consciences on various issues, especially as they relate to food.
What’s more, the conscience is taken very seriously. Paul reminds the Roman Christians that “the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.” The conscience was held in such high esteem that disregarding its voice was considered a sin even if the act itself was not. This is not because Paul thinks that the deed might actually be immoral. Rather, he teaches that the conscience is one of the places where life is lived immediately before God, and casually casting off its counsel is not good for the soul.
Since Paul, the Christian tradition has understood some matters, like various food scruples, to fall under the category of adiaphora, literally “indifferent things.” To be clear, I am not in a position to determine whether or not the plaintiffs’ actions fall in such a category. The point is more refined. An individual adherent’s idiosyncratic scruples do not necessarily pose a contradiction to the authenticity of their submission to the broader, more authoritative, teaching of their tradition. The central concern is that, within boundaries, the conscience of the believer must be respected.
The importance of this principle is reflected throughout later Christian history, including contemporary doctrinal standards. For example, we see it in the Vatican’s official teaching through New Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church,
Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters. (# 1782)
A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed. (#1790)
The Reformation leader John Calvin represents a different tradition within Christianity, but he also affirmed the centrality of the individual’s sense of right and wrong when he said that the conscience,
Stands as it were between God and man, not suffering man to suppress what he knows in himself; but following him on even to conviction. It is this that Paul means when he says, “Their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing one another.” (The Institutes, Book III, 15)
The legitimacy of an individual believer’s right to form his or her own regulations for behavior is also reflected in the historic tradition of vows and oaths. The Westminster Confession of Faith was written in the 1640s as a systematic summary of the doctrines and practices of a large group of English and Scottish Christians. The writers affirmed the individual’s right to frame his or her own faith practices with these words:
Whoever takes an oath ought duly to consider the weightiness of so solemn an act, and to vow nothing but what he is fully persuaded is the truth: neither may any man bind himself by oath to anything but what is good and just, and what he believes so to be, and what he is able and resolved to perform. (Westminster Confession of Faith, 22, III)
In the Christian tradition vows are voluntary by nature. But once taken, the primacy of the individual conscience is to be respected as a kind of self-imposed law. Again, it is clear that the individual may take positions on matters which are distinct in ways from the larger tradition. The larger community is called to respect those choices.
This survey has called for patience with technical religious words written ages ago. Their historic context, however, testifies to the long-standing importance of conscience. Whatever the perceived value of Christianity’s historic teaching for the reader, it is clear that the choices of the believer’s conscience are to be cherished as vital to his or her life with God.
