Toleration and Enlightenment Thinking
Voltaire and his Peers Address the Fanaticism of Religion
Toleration is as important a concept today as it was during the Enlightenment Age, a period when radically new thinking challenged the old order, particularly the established state religions. Despite this promising beginning, toleration as a positive force has yet to become an active part of everyday life, even in the most advanced societies of the post modern world. Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire viewed toleration as a natural element of rational thinking. This great French philosopher once wrote, “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Toleration was the measure of Enlightenment truth.
The Need for Toleration in the 18th Century
The European wars of religion, notably the Thirty Years’ War that ended in 1648, had left much of central Europe in ruins. Population losses due to this devastating period are equated with 14th century losses due to Bubonic Plague. Although the 1555 Peace of Augsburg was reaffirmed, religious intolerantness existed everywhere, and not just among Christian bodies. Jews and Muslims were still persecuted and marginalized by Christian societies.
In 1762 a French Calvinist was executed by the Catholic authorities of Toulouse in France. Jean Calas was accused of killing his son who desired to convert to Catholicism. After torture and execution, Calas was executed. Three years later, after the intervention of Voltaire, a new inquiry found that Calas had been innocent. This case demonstrated the need for toleration as well as a curb on religious fanaticism, addressed by Voltaire in his Treatise on Tolerance.
Catholics were not alone in their relentless purges of non-Catholic religious groups. In England, Puritans in the Parliament passed laws restricting the full participation by Catholics in military and government affairs. Even in the new American colonies, religious toleration seldom existed as differing groups quibbled over Biblical interpretation.
After the Age of Enlightenment
Enlightenment challenges were illusive and toleration did not survive into the 19th Century. This was a century of revolution and wars across Europe. It was a period of Manifest Destiny, Imperialism, and the glorification of Anglo-Saxonism. There was no room for toleration. Dominant societies exploited and oppressed weaker ones, often in the name of religion, progress, or Social Darwinist applications. The Doctrine of Propinquity became the normative standard for acquiring territories. Toleration devolved into paternalism.
By the 20th Century, toleration was equated with unwelcome liberalism. The century began with ethnic cleansing in Turkey, the first significant genocide involving the Armenian ethnic minority. The high point on intolerance was the German Holocaust. Yet even into the 21st Century, toleration is fleeting. Despite the best efforts of schools to teach tolerance, an on-going project of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, tolerance continues to be undermined by generational prejudices.
Toleration Linked to other Enlightenment Goals
Although toleration has not been attained, other Enlightenment goals have. Most developed nations support freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Many nations no longer practice capital punishment. Democratically inclined nations recognize the inherent rights and liberties of all peoples, including the protections of habeas corpus and due process.
The 18th Century target of toleration was religious fanaticism. Although religious bodies in most developed nations no longer actively persecute other faith traditions, fanaticism still attempts to influence society and politics, most notably in America. In Germany, the Jehovah’s Witness sect is still fighting for the right to exist – the same group persecuted by the Nazis over sixty years ago.
In the United States, some Catholic bishops, like the bishops of Charleston and Charlotte, have refused to allow pro-choice political candidates from receiving the Eucharist. Thomas Paine, an American Patriot and Deist, wrote that all the religions known to him in the 18th Century claimed exclusive truth, damning each other to hell. He accepted none of them. Toleration goes a long way to ensure social harmony and respect for opposing views. This was a goal of Enlightenment thinkers.
Sources:
General Histories like The Western Heritage, by Donald Kagan and others; World Civilizations by Craig and others (both Prentice Hall)
Author’s lecture notes
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