Freedom of Conscience in Early Modern Philosophy: Genesis of the Concept

The paper presents the analysis of the historical development of ideas of tolerance, freedom of conscience and speech in Early Modern times. These concepts were introduced to the ideological & philosophical discourse by Reformation and Counterreformation movements. An initial point of their development was linked to the strife of competing parties and thus got a strong instrumentalist bias. Mainstream theorists of the Reformation (e.g. T. Beza, Peter Martyr Vermigli, T. Goodwin) regarded tolerance & freedom of conscience as a means for propagation of a true faith (i.e. Protestantism) and a guarantee against its suppression by the powerful governments of the unfaithful. Mainstream theorists of the Counterreformation (e.g. F. Suarez, M. Becanus) followed this pattern as well. While mainstream theorists stressed a collectivist and clerically-conservative perspective of the freedom of conscience, their adversaries proposed an individualist and politically radical vision. S. Castellion, R. Brown and R. Williams argued that freedom of conscience was a universal right of a person of any confessional identity; a true Reformation, ought to be a “Reformation Without Tarying for Anie”, not just a reformed papal tyranny. Disputations between the proponents of the conservative and the radical perspective culminated in the writings of J. Milton and T. Hobbes. Despite the sharp confl ict of parties they belonged to Milton and Hobbes stood on a common ground of a secular & individualist vision of the freedom of conscience. Their analysis of the practices of freedom of thought & speech and of the tensions between the citizen and the state set an initial point of the religious thought in the Enlightenment epoch.