The virtues of sincerity

We often hear that the ideas of tolerance and secularism are resolutely modern ideas, the emergence of which is linked to the appearance of religious pluralism at the time of the Reformation. Christophe Grellard’s work intends to challenge this preconceived idea by showing that the conditions of possibility of this emergence can be identified among theologians of the XIII^e And XIV^e centuries, particularly in texts which dissociated for the first time access to salvation and the possession of the truth. For these theologians, the one who errs is therefore not necessarily damned if his error is invincible and if his intention is pure, that is to say if his conscience is stretched towards God.

These categories – invincible error, the obligation of conscience – require clarification, but C. Grellard hypothesizes that the early appearance then the slow maturation of these ideas made it possible to form, on the eve of the Council of Trent (1545), a concatenation or an intellectual constellation which, against a background of “ social and political circumstances ”, produced a true theory of religious pluralism. Understanding, in this sense, must go from ideas to the facts that they make possible, and not from events to the ideas supposed to justify them. a posteriori. However, it is not a question of saying, according to the author, “ that all modernity is medieval ”, because this “ would make no sense » ; it is only a matter of “ emphasize that there is never a radical break » (p. 132) in the life of ideas, because any major conceptual innovation is always prepared in advance by intellectual mutations, sometimes barely visible and poorly coordinated with each other, but which the historian of ideas must endeavor to reconstruct if he wants to understand how such ruptures become possible.

Thomas Aquinas, the first step

The first milestone on the road to the separation between salvation and the possession of truth is laid by Thomas Aquinas when he asserts that conscience compels even when it is erroneous. This does not mean, however, that he who errs in believing in conscience to follow the word of God performs a morally good act, but only that he sins more seriously by disregarding his conscience than by opposing the divine command while being internally convinced of conforming to it. In this sense the divine precept is located more on the side of conscience than of the external law materialized in an ecclesial hierarchy, and Thomas accomplishes there what the author calls “ a decisive step in the defense of autonomy » of the believing individual (p. 61).

But, obviously, the obligation of the erroneous conscience only binds according to Thomas in an imperfect way, that is to say only as long as its error does not appear to us, as long as it remains invincible and as long as it resists the efforts of those who want to find the truth and who seek it. Negligent or voluntary error therefore cancels the excuse of ignorance and the right to error only exists for those who sincerely seek a truth which, however, is no longer necessary to find in order to be saved.

The thesis defended by Thomas is also based on the idea – specific to an intellectualist perspective – that the will depends on the intellect, that it is required to follow what the latter presents to it as a truth so that everyone not only has the right to follow their conscience even if it is erroneous, but that they have the duty to do so, because “ any contempt for conscience is contempt for God “. And while Thomas does not go so far as to explicitly argue that the action following an erroneous conscience is not only excused, but can be described as morally good, he nevertheless implies that such a conclusion is not impossible, for if an act is excused, “ this means that it is not intrinsically bad and therefore it is good » (p. 65). Conscience thus tends to acquire, in its relationship with God, a primacy such that, even if erroneous, the acts it induces are invested with a moral quality that could in no case be possessed by acts contrary to it.

The Ockhamist rupture

However, it is with William of Ockham that the decisive development occurs: the invincibly erroneous conscience is virtuous and meritorious, and whoever follows this conscience acts well and deserves salvation. An intimate bond is thus created between conscience and God which cannot be broken by the command or law of an institution external to the individual, in particular those of the visible Church and its experts. As C. Grellard writes, it is now a matter of “ not to assert anything against one’s conscience because of a human word ”, because it is necessary “ always prefer the divine authority to which we access through our right reason and our conscience, to the conscience of another man » (p. 73). The autonomy of inner conviction thus takes precedence over the heteronomy of external authority.

Of course, the conclusion only holds if the ignorance invoked is invincible and does not result from negligence in seeking the truth. But here too, a decisive shift occurs, because the sharp distinction between vincible error and invincible error would presuppose the possibility of access to a truth independent of consciousness, and by which the erroneous consciousness could in some way be judged guilty because it is negligent. But if conscience is the only path to truth, it becomes impossible to establish that a conscience is prey to an error that it could overcome or that it ignores what it should know. The only condition for right action is therefore no longer that error is invincible, but that those who follow their conscience are unaware that they are wrong and sincerely believe they are pursuing the truth.

The fact that such an invincible error clears us of all sin, however, does not make morality subjective, because it is not because we believe that a particular action is good that it actually is. But the fact remains that performing this action with the sincerely acquired conviction that it is in conformity with divine law is meritorious even if this action is not meritorious in itself. The divine precept commands, for example, to come to the aid of the destitute. But we can, after as complete an investigation as possible, conclude that a particular person is in poverty and deserves our help when this is not the case. The help we provide is therefore in contradiction with morality, but our action is nevertheless not a sin, and it is not only excused but meritorious. As C. Grellard writes, “ God remains the supreme norm but he delegates this norm to individual conscience “. We cannot, he adds, underestimate the importance of this “ reversal in the hierarchy of norms “, because now, “ because of the intimate link between conscience and God, the authority of external law – that of the ecclesial institution and its experts in particular – can no longer impose itself on conscience » (p. 72).

The infallibility of the ecclesial institution in question

The idea that conscience obliges in all circumstances even when it is erroneous, however, risks leading to a shameful consequence: did those who persecuted Christ act well? ? Are those who worship the devil who cleverly disguised himself as a saint following the divine will? ? It was therefore inevitable that resistance would arise with regard to this primacy of conscience and that some would want to maintain, like Jean Mair (1467-1550) “ a strong dimension of heteronomy in morality ” as well as “ the primacy of the law in its objectivity and in its exteriority » (p. 85). But, as C. Grellard shows, even a theologian concerned with saving this form of exteriority of the law like Jean Mair can only be sensitive to the idea that conscience could well supplant the ecclesial institution in its universal claim to hold the truth. In a way, there came a time when it became impossible to escape the idea that no consciousness can be a law for another. If divine law remains the ultimate reference for the definition of good and evil, “ the question is in the mode of access to this law “. The theologians who have unraveled the idea that erroneous conscience compels have come to the conclusion that it was necessary to reject the thesis according to which access to this law must be done through the mediation of a human institution which would be guarantor of the truth it exposes. The status of heresy is lastingly and profoundly disrupted, because, if Thomas still intended to preserve the place of the Church as bearer of an infallible rule and legitimate mediator between God and man, Ockham for his part maintained a clear awareness of the fallibility of this institution supposed to hold and teach the truths without which it would be impossible to be saved. It in fact introduces what C. Grellard calls “ the thesis of a universal fallibility of human authorities which devalues ​​the role of guarantor that the ecclesial institution had granted itself » (p. 99). The Pope himself is not protected from error and he differs in no way from other men. in terms of grace and relationship to sin » (p. 101).

The hidden resources of intolerance

C. Grellard interrupts his historical study on the threshold of modernity since his ambition was to highlight the medieval debates which made possible the emergence of tolerance, that is to say the idea that the paths which lead to salvation can be plural and do not depend on access to a universal truth, but on the righteousness of intention. However, we cannot leave this subject without mentioning that intolerance retained formidable weapons which it would not hesitate to use against the pretensions of the wandering conscience such as its outlines have been drawn in this work. Let us judge this by the debate which pitted John Locke against one of his opponents on this question of religious tolerance. The latter – his name is Jonas Proast – affirms that the persecutors do not accuse their victims of being in error, but only of being negligent in their search for the truth, in other words of being prey to a vincible error, an error about things that they would be able to know if they took the trouble, and that they have a duty to know. So they say to those they persecute: “ You have not examined enough, your error is voluntary, which authorizes us to persecute you since not only cannot an action which results from a voluntary error be good, but it is without any excuse “. The persecuted for his part claims that he was not negligent, that he examined as much as he could, but that he concluded, after rigorous examination, that he could see no reason to abandon his original conviction, and that the articles of faith to which the persecutors asked him to adhere still seemed to him, after this rigorous examination, as heretical and false as before. To which the persecutors retort that this response is obviously bad faith and that their victim did not examine it with sufficient care, because, if she had done so, she would have recognized the falsity of her primitive beliefs. It is in fact impossible, say the persecutors, to carefully examine the dogmas that we defend without recognizing their truth. If you do not recognize it, it is because you have not examined carefully, your error is voluntary and the result of negligence. We are therefore allowed to continue to persecute you. Invoking the invincible nature of our conviction is therefore not enough to guarantee that our beliefs will be tolerated.