On The Virtue of Intolerance

The Western world recoiled in horror over the prospect of Abdul Rahman’s threatened execution as punishment for apostasy. The man had forsaken the Prophet to follow the Prince of Peace. Islamic clerics called for his beheading as the due wages of his crime.

It is true that the Church has displayed such gross intolerance in its own history. Everyone will recall the balmy days of the late 15th century when Tomas Torquemada was commissioned to protect the True Faith from Jewish pseudo converts who, he thought, were out to subvert Christian teaching. One woman was arrested on the charge that smoke was not seen rising from her chimney on a Saturday—a sure sign that she was still keeping the Sabbath. Once in Torquemada’s hands, one’s options were fairly limited: one could continue to deny heresy and endure prolonged torture, or one might confess and face death. It’s a cheery story all around, as they say.

And the classic Foxes Book of Martyrs (affectionately known by generations of seminarians as Moxes Book of Fartyrs) documents a plethora of imaginative—even artistic—ways by which Protestant heretics met their fates at Catholic hands. A particular favorite involved a buttonhole incision in the abdomen, which allowed a portion of the intestine to be drawn out and nailed to a post. The sufferer was then forced to march around the post with inevitable results. Of course, Protestants were known to return such favors. Religious differences spawned wars that plagued Europe throughout the 16th century.

But all of that goes with a darker, earlier period in our history, doesn’t it? It is difficult for us to imagine a contemporary who would remove a head because the contents therein are objectionable. If we have learned anything at all in our years it is that we all should be tolerant of those who see things differently.

Boy, have we learned.

These days we are told that mere tolerance is not enough. We should learn to celebrate diversity. Indeed, one author on religious pluralism recently suggested that “tolerant forbearance” of another’s beliefs implies a sort of arrogance, as it assumes that one’s own beliefs are in a “position of privilege.” Congressman Jim McDermott exhibited the spirit of the age when he chided the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention some time ago for their evangelistic and missionary efforts among adherents of non-Christian faiths. It seems that the Baptists were praying for Hindus to abandon their false beliefs and come to Christ, who is the only way to salvation. McDermott
drafted a letter, signed by several other members of congress, that included this complaint:

We cannot understand how men and women, raised and educated in the world's bastion of religious freedom and tolerance, can characterize another religion as spiritually dark and false. The lack of respect that this statement shows for the basic rights of an individual to believe in whatever faith they choose is perhaps the most disturbing.

Evangelism, with its assumption that the other guy’s beliefs are “spiritually dark and false, is anathema.

Allen Bloom observed that all of the classic virtues seem to have given way to one contemporary cardinal virtue: we all must be tolerant. And, in the wisdom of the day, tolerance seems to have taken oifn a new meaning. Where it once meant allowing the other person to believe as she wishes with no interference from oneself, it now appears to mean not so much as thinking that the other person’s beliefs are false. If I think that Buddhist doctrine is simply wrong, then I am intolerant. Indeed, as Mr. McDermott would have it, my thinking that your religious beliefs are false somehow fails to respect your right to religious belief. So if Smith and Jones engage in religious debate, each trying to persuade the other that his beliefs are mistaken, then they are in mutual violation of one another’s fundamental right to believe whatever one chooses to believe.

Of course, this is a piece of sheer nonsense. G.K. Chesterton observed nearly 100 years ago that the Christian virtue of humility had come to be misplaced. It was intended to temper the “organ of ambition,” but had settled instead upon the “organ of conviction.” “A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.” He adds, “At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one.” Today we display this misplaced virtue by neutralizing any statement on some important social issue with the amendment, “Of course, that’s only my opinion.” And this is usually taken to imply that a contrary opinion is just as valid. Chesterton would have none of this. Of the man who suggests that perhaps his view isn’t the right one, Chesterton writes, “Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view.” Elsewhere, he defined a “heretic” as anyone who disagrees with his own philosophy.

Arrogant? Intolerant? Not at all. His point is a simple one of logic. To believe a thing is to believe that it is true. If I say that I believe the Buddhist doctrine of Dependent Origination, then I am implying that I take that doctrine to be true. And believing the doctrine to be true entails also believing that its denial is false. If I believe that God exists then, assuming that I understand what is said, I must also believe it is false that only propertyless Brahman exists.

To believe anything is to believe that lots of other things—even doctrines that are cherished by fine people—are false. If we were to accept Mr. McDermott’s definition of tolerance, then, it would follow that everyone who believes anything at all is not only intolerant, but also disrespectful of the rights of others to believe as they choose. Of course, if Mr. McDermott believes this, then it follows that he is intolerant and disrespectful of those who disagree.

The Islamic clerics who called for Rahman’s beheading displayed an intolerable intolerance by insisting that he should not believe anything except for the teachings of Mohammed. But McDermott and his ilk, with their new doctrine of tolerance would insist that we should not believe anything at all. People in the past have thought doctrinal differences important enough to wage wars over; our contemporaries, in an effort to avoid even a controversy, have apparently reached the conclusion that those differences are simply unimportant.

Which is more tolerant: My telling you that your beliefs are important but false, or my telling you that what you believe just isn’t important?