JULIAN HUXLEY once declared that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions. Andre Suares further observed: “Heresy is the lifeblood of religions. It is faith that begets heretics. There are no heresies in dead religions.” They both agreed, however, that last decade’s heresies may become yesterday’s forsaken beliefs, today’s moral majority and tomorrow’s dogma. Is heresy, then, little more than last year’s apostasies and next year’s certitudes? Somehow, given the dire fate of many heretics, there must be more to heresy than being an unfathomable or unfashionable belief.

It may be easier to understand heresy by first defining its character. Certainly there are many things that heresy is not. A pre-adolescent temper tantrum involving the assertion that a toothbrush is useless does not constitute heresy; nor can condemnation of the Beatles be construed as heresy. Heresy, then, must be substantially more than contrariness. The issue must be serious and the heretic response must be earnest; it must stem from one’s soul and it must engender some measure of personal hazard since it is expressed in the face of those, temporarily in the majority, who fervently believe otherwise.

Furthermore, heresy cannot be frivolous. Declaring total allegiance to the New York Yankees in Fenway Park may be suicidal, but not heretical. Nor can the primary purpose of the heresy be solely to provoke an adverse reaction in someone else — “getting a rise out of somebody.”

Card-carrying heretics, those moved by principles, don’t sit on the sidelines waiting for transformative changes in the community or decision-making editorials to be published before openly expressing their views. Heretical thinking is not created in response to opinion polls.

The current concept of heresy began in an ancient Greek word signifying an act of choice, a belief voluntarily and personally selected, and not a belief necessarily contrary to contemporary, dominant beliefs. But gradually, the word began to signify a belief (or system of beliefs) that was no longer merely marginal, factional or heterodox but a distinct departure from fundamental dogma and therefore worthy of vigorous condemnation. But whether it was a personal belief of an innocent nature, or a personal belief in active conflict with authoritarian gospel, it must be a strongly held to be considered heretical.

Consider now an imaginary world. Nations, in this world, do not take up arms against other nations; nor are there crusades, transnational conquests or subjugations; the world is at peace and tranquility reigns among all peoples. Neighbors aid each other and fences between properties are a distant memory. Speeches are neither polemical nor disputatious. Children attend school but refrain from hostile acts and do not even compete in athletic events. The curriculums of the schools stay unchanged over the years and consist solely of non-contentious subjects. Newspapers refrain from provocative editorials. Nor are there debating societies since the only remaining issues to be debated are the menu choices for each night’s supper.

In a word, this idyllic world is sustained by widespread, congenial agreement in all things both theological and secular. Happiness is uniformly distributed, as are beliefs, which are universally held and comforting, internally consistent and non-controversial. Beliefs are determined solely by consensus, by common sense and the evidence provided by one’s immediate senses. It is universally believed in this serene world that the sun rotates around the earth, that the major religious texts are inerrant, that professional athletes employ steroids only for post-retirement arthritis and that the moon is composed of Camembert cheese. Truly, this world has matured to a place of pervasive happiness and contentment. Variations of opinion are of course allowed in this harmonious world, but only within prescribed ranges. Any more radical departures represent rank apostasy, and are deemed antisocial.

And science? Here, too, common sense reigns, with neither paradoxes nor black holes of ignorance muddying the environment. Concepts of such disquieting entities as infinity, evolution, non-Euclidean geometry, quantum mechanics, relativity, astrophysics and germ theories of disease are nowhere to be discussed or even entertained. Emotional peace becomes more important than anxiety or the corrosive knowledge of how little is known. Skepticism and curiosity become alien emotions.

The future, in such a pacific environment, would never be feared since the world will remain unchanged. Tomorrow, and all of the days that follow will be the same blissful Eden as yesterday or today. Ugliness, discord, contentiousness — and heresy — would remain as alien experiences confined to story books. And only the looming shadow of utter boredom would threaten this prospect of tranquility.

But imagine now, in this placid community, some rebellious individual, someone with the temerity to question the accepted beliefs of the majority, a person eager to assert that the ultimate enemy is not discord but ingrained bigotry and willful ignorance. The elders of this hypothetical community might initially condemn such a heretic, perhaps even destroy his spirit, but in their hearts they will know that all things but death change; that all beliefs must be tested continuously to determine which are false and which worthy and that it is the occasional heretic — with his provoking postulates — and not the peace-lover who brings progress and understanding to the community.

Stanley M. Aronson, M.D., a weekly contributor, is dean of medicine emeritus, at Brown University ( smamd@cox.net).