The doctrine of individual soul liberty (sometimes called “soul competency”) is the belief that each individual is ultimately and personally responsible to God. Given this, it would be inappropriate for human persons or institutions to set themselves up as spiritual authorities who must be obeyed on pain of penalty; such a position would be, at least implicitly, a usurpation of God’s own role.
In a sense this doctrine is very much related to the belief in the priesthood of all believers. In both cases a distinct anti-authoritarian disposition is very much in view. Likewise, both dogmas stress the importance of personal involvement in one’s spirituality. Thus, at times, these two related concepts are used almost interchangeably but helpful distinctions can still be made: Whereas the priesthood of all believers asserts the responsibility of every Christian to participate personally in God’s redemptive mission, the notion of individual soul liberty asserts the responsibility of all Christians to relate personally to God with faith and love. One might say that while the priesthood of all believers is a centrifugal doctrine, pushing believers out into the world on mission, individual soul liberty is a centripetal doctrine, pulling believers in towards God in worship.
While almost universally recognized in the modern world, this doctrine was quite revolutionary in its infancy and was distinctly Baptist. During the Reformation many groups sought to impose doctrinal uniformity through force. Executions by burning, drowning, hanging, beheading and tortures of all sorts intended to bring about obedience to a dogmatic standard were common in the Christian world. It was against this backdrop that Baptists articulated the doctrine of individual soul liberty and its ideological cousin “voluntarism”.
Since during the 16th and 17th centuries most church bodies were officially connected in some way to civil authority, the doctrine of individual soul liberty led very naturally to a belief that government should not meddle in religious matters. As the Baptist patriarch Thomas Helwys famously opined, “[O]ur lord the king is but an earthly king, and he has no authority as a king but in earthly causes. And if the king’s people be obedient and true subjects, obeying all human laws made by the king, our lord the king can require no more. For men’s religion to God is between God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.”
It must be noted though that in recent years this radical separation of Church and State has proven increasingly problematic. As the Western world enters a “post-Christian” phase many moral principles, once considered universal, have been seen to be religiously grounded. As such, to retain a sense of explicitly moral governance, many Baptists (particularly conservatives) have distanced themselves from the absolutist perspectives of their forefather in favor of a more moderate alternative.