Part III | Expanded Analysis

Category E | Perspectives

Topic 28 | The right to be wrong

If it is to have any meaning, religious freedom must mean that we as human beings have the right to make choices concerning our own beliefs. This means we have the right to be wrong. This is true even if we are wrong in matters of conscience, including matters of religious truth, and even at the peril of our own soul.⁷³³

The protections and paradox of religious freedom  

Personal protections. Becket Fund founder Kevin Seamus Hasson explains that “[religious] freedom for all is guaranteed by the truth about each of us: Our common humanity entitles us to freedom—within broad limits—to follow what we believe to be true as our consciences say we must, even if our consciences are mistaken.”⁷³⁴

Regarding personal, individual conscience, Hasson notes it “is neither omniscient nor infallible. It needs an education, though even with one it still makes mistakes.”⁷³⁵ Nevertheless, as Hasson explains, conscience is what each human being must rely on:

"[A]s fallible and ignorant as conscience may sometimes be, it’s in charge and it knows it. It takes the truth, as we understand it, and applies it to real-life problems to judge what’s good. To refuse to follow its judgment (even if it later turns out to have been mistaken) is to consciously reject what we believe to be true and turn our backs on what we believe to be good."⁷³⁶

The right to religious freedom thus protects this process of each of us to continually exercise and educate our own conscience. It gives us broad freedom to hold, reject, act on, not act on, share, and adjust our beliefs—whether correct or incorrect—in a continually liminal space of potential progression.

Paradox of religious freedom. The rub, of course, is that this same right is granted to those who believe differently and with whom we disagree. In fact, the right to religious freedom requires us to respect others’ religious freedom even when we are sure they are wrong, since they too enjoy the right to be wrong.⁷³⁷

Law and religion scholar W. Cole Durham, Jr., calls this the “paradox of religious freedom.”⁷³⁸ While religious freedom grants us the space to affirm and agree to follow our conscience and what we believe to be true (even if wrong) it also demands from us a reciprocal duty to “respect the views of those who adhere to other systems of belief.”⁷³⁹ At the heart of this paradox is love embodied in “the recognition of the realities of human dignity and conscience and of the obligation to respect agency at the precious core of the human spirit.”⁷⁴⁰ Durham notes, “What those who forget this paradox do not understand is that the mere possession of truth does not carry with it a right to impose that truth on others. God possesses all truth, yet He has left us our freedom.”⁷⁴¹ And God does so, even at the peril of our souls.⁷⁴²

Clarifications  

While the right to religious freedom grants us and others the right to be wrong, it does not imply or require indifferentism, personalism, moral relativity, or equivalence.

Indifferentism. Religious freedom does not imply indifference to the truth, nor does it imply that the truth does not matter. Most serious defenses of religious freedom include a corollary that as human beings we have an obligation to seek, pursue, advocate for, and try to live in accordance with truth. “We’re free to insist that others are wrong for the same reason they’re free to insist we are.”⁷⁴³

Relativism. “Relativism, roughly put, is the view that truth and falsity, right and wrong, standards of reasoning, and procedures of justification are products of differing conventions and frameworks of assessment and that their authority is confined to the context giving rise to them.”⁷⁴⁴ This is the view society increasingly chooses to hold, but it is opposed to true religious freedom. Religious freedom does not imply that truth is relative to particular situations or circumstances. To the contrary, it implies that important truths extend beyond specific situations or contexts. Thomas Jefferson described religious freedom itself as originating from an independent, objective “truth.”⁷⁴⁵

Personalism. Similar to relativism, religious freedom does not imply that truth is simply a matter of personal preference (that your truth is true for you but not for me). Nor does it imply “that everything is somehow true for somebody, as the greeting-card writers would” have it.⁷⁴⁶ There may be multiple perspectives on a single truth, but truth is not reducible to our own point of view.

Equivalence. Religious freedom does not imply that your truth is as good as mine. For example, followers of Islam believe that Muhammad was the last prophet,⁷⁴⁷ Catholics believe Jesus was the last prophet,⁷⁴⁸ Jews consider Malachi to have been the last prophet,⁷⁴⁹ and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that prophets live on the earth today.⁷⁵⁰ Religious freedom does not require that these beliefs be equally true; in fact, one of these “truths” may be better (closer to the actual) truth than the other. The right to religious freedom is the right to decide which of these, or other beliefs, is true. It is the freedom not to have someone else dictate to us what is and is not religious truth.

Conclusion  

Hasson asserts that “we have a conscience-driven, fundamental need for religious search and expression. It is quintessentially human. And when something quintessentially human requires freedom in order to be authentic, it’s wrong to rob it of its authenticity by robbing it of its freedom.”⁷⁵¹ To be truly authentic, therefore, religious search and expression must remain free to be wrong. And we must respect and uphold that freedom for ourselves and others alike.

References

733. Toolkit Topic 28 (The Right to be wrong) was drafted with contributions by Tyson Wilson, 2023 ICLRS Summer Fellow.

734. KEVIN SEAMUS HASSON, THE RIGHT TO BE WRONG: ENDING THE CULTURE WAR OVER RELIGION IN AMERICA (quote from book jacket) (2005).

735. Id. at 14.

736. Id.

737. Id. at 39 (emphasis added).

738. W. Cole Durham, Jr., The Doctrine of Religious Freedom, ICLRS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM LIBRARY (Apr. 3, 2001), https://www.religiousfreedomlibrary.org/documents/the-doctrine-of-religious-freedom (BYU Forum address).

739. Id.

740. Id.

741. Id.

742. See, e.g., Genesis 2:17; 3 (KJV); Deuteronomy 28:15–30, 45 (KJV).

743. HASSON, supra, at 147.

744. Maria Baghramian & J. Adam Carter, Relativism, STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism (last updated Jan. 10, 2025).

745. HASSON, supra, at 117 (quoting Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17, in 5 AMENDMENT I (RELIGION), DOCUMENT 40, at 157–61 (1784), https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions40.html (last visited Dec. 2024)).

746. Id. at 15.

747. Al-Ahzab 33:40.

748. See Acts 3:18 (KJV); Trent Horn, Why Can’t There Be Other Prophets After Jesus?, CATHOLIC ANSWERS, https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-cant-there-be-other-prophets-after-jesus (last visited Dec. 2024).

749. See Tosefta Sotah 3:3; Rabbi Hayyim Angel, The End of Prophecy: Malachi’s Position in the Spiritual Development of Israel, IDEAS: INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH IDEAS AND IDEALS, https://www.jewishideas.org/article/end-prophecy-malachis-position-spiritual-development-israel (last visited Dec. 2024).

750. See Doctrine & Covenants 135–36 (demonstrating the succession of Brigham Young as prophet and president of the Church following Joseph Smith’s death); Prophets, NEWSROOM: THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/prophets (last visited Dec. 2024).

751. HASSON, supra, at 123–24.