Works By John Courtney Murray, S.J.  Woodstock Home | Woodstock
Theological Center Library | Bibliography  Arguments for the
Human Right to Religious Freedom1  John Courtney Murray, S.J.
The following article is the closest that the later Murray came
to a "purely natural law," philosophical argument. As mentioned
in the general introduction, Murray began his 1945 philosophical
argument with "essential definitions" of key terms that he
though relevant to that debate—terms such as "conscience,"
"law," "state," and "God." Here he is defining the term "human
dignity" that serves as the philosophical foundation for the
right to religious freedom. In doing so, however, he is not
delineating a timeless essence. Rather, he is making explicit a
notion that, he contends, has emerged within Western societies.
After the mid-1950s, natural law had become for Murray a
developing tradition of ideas, commitments, and procedures that
course through the social and political thought of a secular
society that is continuously on