Back to Homepage	Amsterdam ( 1948) Declaration on Religious Liberty / WHAT KIND OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY DO ECUMENICAL BODIES CLAIM? By A. F. Carrillo de Albornoz	Browse Other Pages Homepage Very First Trip to Amsterdam Amsterdam - A Quick Orientation The Trolleys of Amsterdam Restaurants and Meals in Amsterdam --- Breakfast in Amsterdam --- Lunch in Amsterdam --- Afternoon Snacks in Amsterdam --- Dinner in Amsterdam --- Drinking in Amsterdam --- Restaurants Serving Koffietafel --- Sandwich Shops in Amsterdam --- Sandwich Shops - Uitsmijters --- Bami Goreng Nasi Goreng --- Amsterdam: Sidewalk Cafe Sitting Hotels in Amsterdam --- Canal-House Hotels in Amsterdam Tourist Information Amsterdam Seeing Amsterdam Amsterdam: A Canal Boat Ride A Visit to Brewery Amsterdam A Visit to a Diamond Cutter The Home of Anne Frank The Home of Rembrandt Our Lord in the Attic Canal Mansions in Amsterdam The Begijnhof in Amsterdam The Waag in Amsterdam Walks Around Town - Amsterdam Excursions Outside Amsterdam The Sailors' Quarter The Tropical Museum in Amsterdam Amsterdam: The Rijksmuseum The Stedelijk (Municipal) Museum ..................... Netherlands General Information The Low Countries: The Netherlands Netherlands Railways History of Amsterdam and Netherlands Prehistory of Belgium, Netherlands If You Saw Holland from a Flying... Dutch Art The World of Van Gogh 'Dutch' Religious Tolerance Hollanders Ashame the Name of... Migration to Netherlands Old Domestic Architecture Evolution of the Dutch Nation Cultural Change in the European Union
	THE TERM 'religious liberty' is a most vague one and it is used for designating many different kinds of religious freedom. The subject of our study being precisely the kind of religious liberty which the ecumenical bodies claimin their declarations and statements, our first task is to identify it clearly and to distinguish it from any other kind of religious freedom.Ecumenical statements seldom attempt to define or to describe the kind of religious liberty they are asking for. Nevertheless, we can easily identify, in the same statements, the essential elements of this kind of religious liberty: a.  Theactive subject,whose faculty it is to exercise religious liberty within society, is the whole human race, every human being, considered on the individual and collective as well as on the corporate and institutional level, and without any limitation with regard to nation, colour, sex, religion, etc.    Thepassive subject,whose duty it is to respect religious liberty of others, is again the human being, every human person, physical or moral, also associations and corporations, also churches or religious bodies and States. In other words, the passive subject is human society in general, including every human being which is external to the active subject. As a consequence of this: 1.  It isonly the human race,the human society, individually and collectively, which has the duty to respect this kind of religious freedom; not God. If man enjoys some freedom before God (psychologically, physically or otherwise), this is not the kind of freedom which we study here.   2.  Similarly, it is the other menwho must respect my religious freedom. For this freedom is essentially social and demands 'alterity' as well as all the other human rights. Therefore, the freedom which I may have before myself or within myself  (which is generally called 'inner' freedom) is not the kind of religious liberty claimed by ecumenical bodies.   2.  Consequently, this freedom being a socialright, to be respected by the human society, we deem it correct to term it 'socialreligious liberty'.   d.  Religious liberty, thus understood, must liberate from social coercion. Therefore, social religious liberty does not only exclude juridical or physical compulsion but all the other possible, even often unconscious, coercions coming from society, economic, moral, psychological, etc.   e.  Finally, the mattersto be protected by this kind of religious liberty are matters of religion generally. Here again ecumenical bodies do not make precise what exactly are 'matters of religion',still less what is 'religion'. This is, indeed, a grave question which we should study later. Nevertheless, for the simple purpose of identificationit is enough to register that in ecumenical statements religious matters include not only the exercise of one's own chosen religion or the right to change one's religion or belief, but also all external activities of worship, preaching, teaching, practice and observance, and even the manifestation in words and deeds of the implications of one's own religious convictions for political, economic or social relations.   In view of this analysis of the ecumenical statements we think we can correctly identify (not define) the kind of religious liberty demanded by ecumenical bodies as thesocial faculty of every adult human being (individually, collectively or corporately) to be free from social coercion in religious matters. Once we have identified the kind of religious liberty which ecumenical bodies demand, we can attempt to distinguish it from other kinds of liberty 1.In contrast to this social freedom which is immunity or exemption from external coercion, we find the natural freedom of choice,which is proper to intellectual creatures and which in itself is independent of, and can co-exist with external compulsion or negation of social liberty. This freedom of choice is often called internalliberty in the sense of liberation from internal compulsion, not from social coercion. We have also called this freedom of volition natural,not with the intention of opposing it to the 'libertas christiana'but merely in the sense of a concept which does not include any religious or theological element and which is accepted by psychologists of other creeds or philosophical background. It is obvious that our religious liberty and this freedom of volition are different things, for one is external, i.e. liberation from external coercion, while the other is internal, i.e. an exemption from internal compulsion. 2.Several theologians, during our discussions, stressed the fundamental difference between social religious liberty and the 'libertas christiana',or specific Christian liberty. From the very first mention of the concept of Christian liberty (particularly as proclaimed by the churches of the Reformation) it is evident that this is not the same thing as social external religious liberty. Although ecumenical statements are extremely short of theological distinctions in this matter, the Amsterdam ( 1948) Declaration on Religious Liberty explicitly distinguishes between 'the liberty with which Christ has set us free', which is 'inner freedom', and 'its outward expression', so that 'all men should have freedom in religious life'. We think that there is ecumenical agreement on this distinction. It seems plainly evident that social freedom to take and to actualize religious decisions free from social coercion is not the same thing as internal freedom in Christ. The main proof is that they can exist separately,as we see in the Christian martyrs. Where opinions begin to vary is when the question arises of asking how great the differences are between these liberties. For some, they are entirelydifferent, so that it would be impossible to establish interrelations between them both, still less to claim the one on grounds of the other. On the other hand, other theologians are not so convinced of the absoluteness of this distinction and wonder whether traditional theology did not make these two liberties seem more different than they are; in other words, whether their interrelations have not been neglected. This is a very interesting and provocative suggestion. Are the two freedoms in part different and in part similar? Considering that the difference clearly consists of the one being external and the other internal, in what way could they be similar? How far and by what wrong arguments or conceptions could traditional theology have represented two freedoms as being more different than they are in reality? We wonder whether we could find the answer to these questions in the following considerations: a.  Has not traditional theology committed the mistake of practising some kind of 'dichotomy of man', considering the individualand the socialbeing separately, while in fact they are the same thing? Conceptually, we are able to consider internal individual liberty without considering social liberty. But are both liberties so separated in the unique human reality, and even in the freedom in Christ? It would seem, on the contrary, that Christ has set men free precisely in the social context. It is true that we can find both liberties separated, but it is always an unnatural and forced situation: man remains internally free in spite ofexternal coercion. We should never neglect the import of this 'in spite of'.   b.  Has not traditional theology emphasized the objectiveaspect of religion too much, and unduly neglected the subjectiveaspect of religious life and its social consequences?   c.  Has not traditional theology excessively stressed the importance of 'authority' and of due obedience to Church and State, thus neglecting the necessary social consequences of internal freedom?   It is difficult to give a final response to these questions, since there is no agreement among our theologians on this. But the matter requires elucidation, and churches are called to discuss it. 3.There are still two other terms which we often find, particularly in the literature of the nineteenth century, namely those of 'freedom of worship' and 'freedom of conscience'. In many cases, both expressions have been employed as synonyms for social religious liberty. We think 'freedom of worship' is a very incomplete expression, for the area of social religious freedom is much larger than 'worship'. Much more difficult is the problem posed by the term 'freedom of conscience'. First of all, it seems that this term, applied to social religious liberty, would solely concern the individual, who alone has 'conscience'. We cannot see how the corporate freedom of the Church, for instance, could be called 'freedom of conscience'. Furthermore the freedom of expression and manifestation of religious beliefs could be understood as 'freedom of conscience' only in an analogical and derivative manner. Therefore, we are reluctant to consider this term as synonymous with 'religious freedom'. Probably 'freedom of conscience' should be accepted as a part of social religious liberty in general, and be a matter for study in the following chapter. We cannot close this chapter without asking ourselves an important question. Does the concept of social religious liberty, as we have identified it in the ecumenical statements, have origin in Christian insights?To answer this question properly a fundamental distinction is necessary: a.  Certainlythe social religious libertydemanded by the ecumenical bodies is not in itself, or objectively, a Christian liberty, neither the 'libertas christiana'of the Reformed Tradition, nor any other kind of specific Christian freedom. The plain proof for this is the fact that many non-Christians demand exactly the same social religious freedom that we demand. This is why the World Council of Churches recognizes the correctness of theareaor contents(provided that they are properly interpreted) of religious liberty proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, although the United Nations has not our Christian motivations. b.  Nevertheless, our own conceptof social religious liberty is Christian. We mean by this that the articulation of its elements and motivations are grounded on our Christian convictions. Thus, we claim religious liberty for all menwithout distinction or discrimination, forwe believe in the fundamental unity of the human family. We demand protection against every social coercion, for we believe that even the State must respect man's highest loyalties. We ask for liberty in a very large area of religious activities, even for the proclamation of the political and social implications of our religious beliefs, in virtueof our Christian understanding of religion. Of course, we have said that many non-Christians demand exactly the same social religious liberty as we. But, on the other hand, many other non-Christians have other very different concepts of religious liberty, precisely on the ground of their different religious or philosophical insights, as we shall see later. In this sense we may say correctly that our own notion of social religious liberty is fully Christian.   Source: The Basis of Religious Liberty Home