THE IMPORTANCE OF "HAVING" THE TRUTH: A critique
of Reinhold Niebuhr's fallibilist theory of religious toleration
Kelly Alvin Madden
7,670 words
1 January 2001
Theology Today
517-532
Volume 57, Issue 4; ISSN: 0040-5736
English
Copyright (c) 2001 Bell & Howell Information and Learning
Company. All rights reserved. Copyright Theology Today Jan
2001
Reinhold Niebuhr's theory of religious toleration based on
human fallibility remains popular, particularly because of
its apparent connection to the virtue of humility. The reality
of pluralism makes uncertainty-if not relativism-especially
plausible today. At the scholarly level, several Christian
thinkers formed by Niebuhr's thoughtRichard John Neuhaus,
Ian Markham, Glenn Tinder, and others-include this theory
to various degrees in their work. Both at the intellectual
and popular levels of discourse, any other justification for
tolerance may have at least a whiff of incivility. In No Offense:
Civil Religion and Protestant Taste, John Murray Cuddihy shows
that, by the overwhelming weight of evidence, Reinhold Niebuhr's
position on tolerance was sociologically driven.1 But Cuddihy
does not address the theory on its own merits.
This essay contends that Niebuhr's theory is not tenable,
particularly for adherents of orthodox Christian traditions.
At issue is not whether Christians and others should tolerate
other religious perspectives, much less whether human fallibility
necessitates humility and awareness of our sinfulness, our
ignorance, the relativity of our positions, or our limitations
as finite and fallen creatures. Instead, the question is whether
fallibility constitutes a solid basis for tolerance.
The criticisms of this essay are organized around three observations.
After outlining Niebuhr's theory, I argue that toleration
is based on belief, not fallibility. Next, I show that Niebuhr's
theory owes more to the secular liberal understanding of public
life than to the Christian tradition. Finally, viewing the
issue of toleration from the vantage point of Christian orthodoxy,
I point to the more fruitful approach of framing the question
in terms of its theological and political issues.
"HAVING, AND NOT HAVING, THE TRUTH"2
"Religion, by whatever name, is the inevitable fruit
of the spiritual stature of man; and religious intolerance
and pride is the final expression of his sinfulness."3
In the interim between the disclosure and fulfillment of history's
meaning, says Niebuhr, we experience "partial realizations"
and "positive corruptions" of what history is about.
At times, we may approximate the meaning of our existence,
but never without the taint of sin. Niebuhr discerns two categories
of activity in history: the quest for truth and the "achievement
of just and brotherly relations with our fellowmen.114 The
two are inextricably linked in the problem of religious toleration.
Religious toleration requires holding two attitudes simultaneously:
"The test is twofold and includes both the ability to
hold vital convictions which lead to action; and also the
capacity to preserve the spirit of forgiveness towards those
who offend us by holding to convictions which seem untrue
to us."5 The focus of Niebuhr's attention is on the second
attitude, while he simply reiterates the necessity of the
first. Where he does develop the first attitude, here and
elsewhere in his theology, Christian doctrines are heuristic
devices, to be held "in principle." They are not
to be associated too closely with time-and-space historical
reality. Indeed, to identify them with historical events would
destroy the creative dialectical tension on which Niebuhr's
whole system depends.
The structure of Niebuhr's anthropology gives leverage to
his theory of religious toleration. He affirms that the capacity
for self-transcendence, the awareness of human finitude and
limitations, "makes it impossible to accept our truth
as the truth." Because we are self-transcendent, we are
challenged to realize that there are "constantly new
and higher points of vantage for judging our finite perspectives
in the light of a more inclusive truth." At the same
time and for the same reason, we realize that there is a ceiling
on our capacity for truth. The reality of sin also makes us
aware of the "ideological taint" of our position,
making it less than the truth and only our truth.6
However, we sometimes fail to appreciate our position and
we claim finality for our finite perspectives. In this case,
we have a failure in self-transcendence. We are ignorant of
our ignorance and of our selfinterest in the truth we claim
to possess. We "hold the truth in unrighteousness."
There is, however, one attitude that will mitigate the peril,
living by what Niebuhr calls "the paradox of grace."
In our historical activities, the fulfillment of the meaning
of history will be less tainted if we do not claim to be pure.
"The test of how well this paradox of the gospel is comprehended,
and how genuinely it has entered into human experience is
the attitude of Christians toward those who differ from themselves
in convictions which seem vital to them. The test, in other
words, is to be found in the issue of toleration."7 It
comes as no surprise, then, that he claims:
The worst form of intolerance is religious intolerance, in
which the particular interests of the contestants hide behind
religious absolutes. The worst form of self-assertion is religious
self-assertion in which under the guise of contrition before
God, He is claimed as the exclusive ally of our contingent
self "What goes by the name of 'religion' in the modem
world," declares a modem missionary [Henrik Kraemer],
"is to a great extent unbridled human selfassertion in
religious disguise."
Determining Niebuhr's exact coordinates on many questions
is problematic, no less so for this one. Niebuhr's theory
of religious toleration takes several forms. In The Nature
and Destiny of Man, Niebuhr argues that toleration is only
possible if one has uncertainty about the final nature of
one's own truth: "Toleration of others requires broken
confidence in the finality of our own truth." He also
states this in the form of the contrapositive: Toleration
is not possible if one is certain about the final nature of
one's own truth. So, according to Niebuhr, "no toleration
is possible without a measure of provisional scepticism about
the truth we hold." Likewise, he says, "The one
everlasting truth of the gospel contains the insight that
mere men cannot have this truth `remote from all fluctuations
due to individuality and existence.' This error is the root
of all Inquisitions."9
On this construction, then, toleration is possible if and
only if uncertainty exists about our full grasp of the truth.
Niebuhr approvingly quotes Charles James Fox: "The only
foundation for toleration is a measure of scepticism and without
it there can be none." 10 Elsewhere, Niebuhr ties tolerance
to the recognition of our sinful state: "Our toleration
of truths opposed to those which we confess ... is possible
only if we are not too sure of our own virtue.""
Niebuhr increasingly emphasized humility as a basis for toleration:
The solution requires a very high form of religious commitment.
It demands that each religion, or each version of a single
faith, seek to proclaim its highest insights while yet preserving
an humble and contrite recognition of the fact that all actual
expressions of religious faith are subject to historical contingency
and relativity. Such a recognition creates a spirit of tolerance
and makes any religious or cultural movement hesitant to claim
official validity for its form of religion or to demand an
official monopoly for its cult. 12
At other times, he connects tolerance to relativity:
This provisional understanding of the relativity of human
knowledge, including the relativity of various interpretations
of religious revelation ... is the primary cause of the ability
of the Renaissance to meet one of the two tests of the problem
of toleration: the willingness to entertain views which oppose
our own without rancour and without the effort to suppress
them.13
A pluralistic world like our own, indeed any democratic world,
requires a certain degree of relativity on some points of
moral practice if not on points of moral doctrine. 14
Tolerance for Neibuhr also is dependent on the knowledge of
our own need for forgiveness and our ability to forgive others.15
In one instance, he divulges a deeper suspicion that toleration
is historically dependent on the dissolution of religious
commitment: "It must be admitted that toleration in religion
could probably not have been achieved in any modern democratic
society had there not been a considerable decay of traditional
religious loyalties." 16
"Provisional skepticism," "humility,"
"broken confidence," a spirit of forgiveness, "relativity,"
uncertainty about our virtue and certainty of our sinfulness-these
are very different concepts. Their connotations concerning
truth are wildly divergent. Although we may separate and categorize
his arguments, it seems that Niebuhr is not interested in
a coherent and systematic rationale for religious toleration.
Yet all these concepts function similarly in Niebuhr's theory.
They have their origin in his existential dialectic, on the
one hand, and their purpose in grounding religious toleration
in human fallibility, on the other hand. Each functions to
prevent adherents of particular traditions from acting on
their "convictions which lead to action" in intolerance.
TOLERATION AND TRUTH "Toleration"
In considering the problems associated with Niebuhr's theory,
we must first consider the definition of "toleration."
Niebuhr suggests his own when he claims that the test of how
well the paradox of grace is apprehended lies in one's attitude:
"The real test of toleration is our attitude towards
people who oppose truths which seem important to us, and who
challenge realms of life and meaning towards which we have
a responsible relation." This test is not just about
attitude, but must include "the ability to hold vital
convictions which lead to action" on the part of tolerators
and the tolerated alike. 17
So, toleration requires a difference of religious opinion
or practice. It must concern an issue of importance and of
moral conviction. The tolerator must also have power over
the tolerated but refrain from using that power. Although
groups may exert some social pressure on others, this is ultimately
a question of political power, the "police power"
of the state, since the state has a monopoly on coercion.
Finally, toleration must in some sense be considered a good.
"To sum up," says Peter Nicholson, "toleration
is the virtue of refraining from exercising one's power to
interfere with others' opinion or action although that deviates
from one's own over something important and although one morally
disapproves of it., 18
We see right away something wrong with fallibilist arguments
for religious toleration, including Niebuhr's. Toleration
is not indifference. On examination, we do not "tolerate"
another's belief unless we are convinced that it is wrong.
If we are not convinced that our own contradictory belief
is true, then we are not really "tolerating" the
other's belief. Similarly, if we are convinced that our own
contradictory belief is true, then we are not bringing it
into question. It is not clear that one can hold vital concerns
"which lead to action"-potentially including the
action of coercion-while also holding in question those concerns.
One might hold other vital concerns (love, pacifism, pragmatic
political ethics) that lead to refraining from coercion, but
how does the same vital concern lead both to action and to
inaction? Our toleration, where it exists, would therefore
be based on our convictions concerning how to treat others
with differing beliefs, not on uncertainty concerning our
belief. Niebuhr does not offer an example of a contested issue
to test his theory.
There is, however, another understanding of "toleration."
It is a redefinition of standards. Toleration in this case
simply means redefining norms to accommodate what some consider
deviancy. Although it is often what is popularly meant by
tolerance, this is not genuine toleration. Nor is it an accomplishment
in a pluralist context, since it depends on effacing differences
rather than finding ways to live with our differences without
compromising our convictions. Despite his "test of toleration,"
it is this second definition of toleration that Niebuhr actually
promotes. He engages in a classic "bait and switch"
move. He holds up the promise of civil harmony with theological
integrity. What he delivers is a counterfeit toleration.
True Tolerance
Niebuhr several times acknowledges his game by agreeing with
Chesterton's well-known quip: "Toleration is the virtue
of people who don't believe anything." 19 Niebuhr apparently
concludes that belief must therefore be compromised. Chesterton
opted for intolerance and orthodoxy. Both men were mistaken,
because the aphorism is false.
J. Budziszewski outlines the case that toleration depends
not on doubt, nor skepticism, nor ethical neutralism, but
on belief. Contrary to much current thinking, tolerance does
not necessitate the suspension of judgment. Judgment is not
only compatible with tolerance; true tolerance requires moral
conclusions and judgment. Properly understood, tolerance is
a matter of knowing when and how to tolerate: "To tolerate
at the right time and in the right way is not a failure of
moral will, or a forbearance from judgment; it is a perfection
of moral will, and an exercise of judgment." Budziszewski
also articulates a formula he says is at work behind every
action of tolerance: "Evils must be tolerated in just
those cases where their suppression would involve equal or
greater hindrance to goods of the same order, or any hindrance
at all to goods of higher order. More briefly (and less exactly):
true tolerance is the protection of ends against means."
20
Budziszewski examines the cases of Christianity, classical
utilitarianism, Millian utilitarianism, Rousseauan contractarianism,
Lockean contractarianism, and neo-Kantianism. In each, he
identifies the same pattern of toleration. Toleration, where
it exists, is based on explicit or implicit faith commitments.
Tolerance never results from indifference to ends but tolerates
evils for the sake of ends.21
The simplest refutation of Niebuhr's theory and validation
of Budziszewski's counterclaim is in actual practice. Niebuhr
concedes that skepticism has led to intolerance, but the point
bears elaboration. Total skepticism, should it exist, would
not favor tolerance over intolerance.22 Richard Tuck and Alan
Ryan demonstrate historically, first, that toleration is not
the necessary result of doubt, and skepticism may lead to
intolerance as well as tolerance, depending on the social
and political context. Second, toleration based in skepticism
has been pragmatic and not more principled than other arguments
for toleration. It has been dictated by considerations of
public order and peace.23
Human fallibility has hardly constituted the only basis for
tolerance in reason or history. Niebuhr himself notes that
"sectaries" have often been more instrumental in
toleration than either secularists or more mainstream churches.
He attributes this to their humility concerning their grasp
of the truth and cites Roger Williams as an example.24
The actual influence of Williams in the foundation of religious
toleration in the United States is questionable, but his stance
on freedom of religion is beyond doubt. His position was not,
however, tied to any uncertainty about his own grasp on the
truth. By the end of his life, he saw his wife and himself
as the only true believers, and he had his doubts about her.
His advocacy of toleration was based on a fanatically separationist
view of the relationship between church and state.
Sectarian groups are almost always formed out of the conviction
that other groups are not as accurate in their grasp of the
truth as they themselves are. In general, they argue for widespread
tolerance either because they believe coercion in matters
of religious conviction and practice is unethical by the standards
of their own religious tradition, or for pragmatic reasons.
Where toleration and uncertainty are bound together, it is
often the case that Niebuhr's cause and effect are inverted.
Religious groups are born from the conviction of their unique
status relative to the truth but practice tolerance as a political
necessity in a pluralistic society. The psychological dissonance
involved in this posture constantly pushes them to question
their own exclusive claims to truth. Tolerance may cause uncertainty
at least as often as the reverse, and as Cuddihy demonstrates,
this was true in Niebuhr's own life story.25
In reality, other motives for toleration have been multiple.
They have included a popular desire for peace after long sectarian
conflict, a religious group's foresight concerning the consequences
should their present position of political strength be lost,
or an understanding of history that anticipates the damage
done to the true faith when the state advances its cause.
The most important case for religious freedom in this century,
Dignitatis humanae (Vatican II) and the writings of John Courtney
Murray, argues for freedom from coercion in religious thought
and practice based on human dignity.26 Niebuhr himself once
claimed that secular banishment of religion from public life
was sometimes the only practical solution to the problem of
sectarian strife.27 Politically pragmatic arguments for religious
toleration played a strong role in the history of religious
toleration in the writing of the First Amendment. Moreover,
Niebuhr's is not the only theory seen in history or reason
that tries to build a basis for tolerance in a rational foundation
having universal pretensions.
More Dubious History
These are not the only historical problems in Niebuhr's theory.
The instances he cites as the best examples of basing tolerance
in fallibilism actually qualify as toleration only in our
second sense: accommodating what some consider deviancy. He
points to a handful of men who supposedly display a genuine
toleration based on fallibility concerning our grasp of truth.
In fact, each man is asking his opponents to view their convictions
as uncertain because he does not agree with their theological
positions.
John Saltmarsh, says Niebuhr, exemplified the proper ideal
of tolerance when he wrote, "Let us not ... assume any
power of infallibility to each other;... for another's evidence
is as dark to me as mine to him ... till the Lord enlighten
us both for discerning alike."28 But Samuel Rutherford
accurately accused Saltmarsh of teaching, among other things,
antinomianism, universalism, and "that every creature
is God, or a substantial part of God."29 His tolerance
was actually the refusal to draw lines.
Niebuhr quotes Oliver Cromwell as one who addresses the issue
of conflicting religious absolutes with the charge "By
the bowels of Christ, remember that you may be mistaken."30
Assessing this and other documents, however, David Smith says:
In one respect, Cromwell seems to have been unusual. Most
puritans assumed that God's 'elect' were contained within
the particular church [denomination] to which they belonged-a
belief which discouraged toleration of others, who were assumed
to be among the 'reprobate'. By contrast, Cromwell thought
that the 'elect' were divided among the different churches
on earth, and that if these scattered fragments could only
be brought together, then a united, godly commonwealth would
emerge.31
John Milton is the "most distinguished of all champions
of toleration" for Niebuhr, with a tolerance "superbly
expressed" in Areopagitica.32 Yet Milton was widely perceived
as an Arian, and as Niebuhr acknowledges, his thought was
a synthesis of Christian and non-Christian humanist sources.
Milton's openness to learn from other sources may be laudable--plundering
the Egyptians, in Origen's analogy-but to use Milton as an
example begs the question. His "convictions leading to
action" pushed him toward openness, not rejection. Where
he had convictions leading to action in intolerance, he was
intolerant, notably of atheism and Roman Catholicism.
In each case, these men were opposed to the dominant position
on the issues in controversy. The fallibility in question
was their opponents'. Whatever we may think of their theology,
the "toleration" they desired was on behalf of their
own positions.
A Logical Problem
Niebuhr positions his theory above the particularity of any
form of Christianity or secularism. He wants an argument for
toleration that will appeal to any actor in public life, regardless
of one's particular faith commitment. But beyond its historical
inaccuracies, Niebuhr's theory based on fallibility does not
ground religious toleration as a logical imperative of the
existential epistemology he offers.
Before continuing, I should emphasize what Niebuhr is not
saying here and what I am not refuting. In "Having, and
Not Having, the Truth" and elsewhere, Niebuhr is not
just saying that every perspective is limited, that we all
have something to learn from others, and that humility should
make us cautious about using the weapons of the state to enforce
our convictions. Few would disagree with this pragmatic openness.
The question is always at what point one must practically
take a position. Where does one draw the line between having,
and not having, the truth? It is part of Niebuhr's prophetic
role to blur such lines, to undermine the spiritual pride
that can accompany any formulation of the truth. To this extent,
he serves all who are on the path. But Niebuhr is saying that
toleration is always on the "not-having-the-truth"
side of the line. Because of our finite condition, we cannot
and should not take any truth as "final." The implications
are not only that none of us has the whole truth, as it were,
but, that none of the truth we have is whole.
The importance of this distinction cannot be overstated. In
order to prevent the possibility of drawing a clear line at
some point, Niebuhr would logically have to deny the possibility
of any final truth. And indeed, he goes this far, though he
will have to retreat later.33 With respect to any conviction
that could possibly lead to intolerance, Niebuhr wants to
make uncertainty absolute. This of course presents a logical
problem. If all truths are incomplete, then so is the affirmation
"All truths are incomplete." It would appear that
Niebuhr's principle is self-referentially contradictory. If
no truth we have is final, then Niebuhr's dialectic itself
is undermined. If no truth can be held with unassailable conviction,
then the "paradox of grace" is only provisionally
true. "Any principle which explains the corruption of
all knowledge explains the corruption of no knowledge,"
notes Edward Carnell, "for it has already corrupted itself."34
Niebuhr has anticipated the objection and addresses the issue
in a long footnote. Rifling through Paul Tillich's work, he
plucks out an argument designed to elevate his existential
epistemology and its conclusions above the fray. Tillich's
theory says that the truth about knowledge cannot be true
of knowledge about knowledge itself, "otherwise it would
cease to have universal significance." The truth about
knowledge itself must be universal in application. But, on
the other hand, to make an exception for this one bit of knowledge
(about knowledge) does indeed undermine the entire premise
of the existential dialectic. What to do? The answer, says
Tillich, is to elevate this judgment about the relationship
of that which is conditioned to "the Unconditioned,"
out of the subjective realm of existence, out of the context
of knowledge itself. It must stand in formal status above
the context of existence. As such, it cannot take any form
of expression in the realm of existence. Niebuhr then identifies
this conclusion with his own statements defining the essence
of human transcendence as our ability to see our finiteness
and of sin as the refusal to admit that finiteness.35
We need not even tackle Tillich to see that this argument
does not work. Even if Tillich's formulation were sound, as
Carnell notes, there is a huge difference between Tillich's
formal proposition and the material inferences Niebuhr draws
from it. The only conclusion to be drawn is the formal proposition
"All truth is relative." We are not able to move
from this to the inference that "the paradox of grace"
is the only adequate expression of the relation between time
and eternity.36 Just the opposite. Niebuhr does not seem to
see that Tillich's theory, even if true, specifically negates
the kinds of logical conclusions Niebuhr wants to draw concerning
the absolute theological necessity of tolerance. Tillich even
rejects our ability to formulate the conclusion of his own
theory propositionally: "This judgment is plainly the
absolute judgment which is independent of all its forms of
expression, even of the one by which it is expressed here."37
Niebuhr's system gives him no Archimedean point for defending
tolerance over intolerance, justice over injustice, good over
evil.38
"Humility"
Niebuhr's emphasis on humility concerning our apprehension
of the truth may be the most weighty formulation of his theory
of tolerance, since it is apparently based in a Christian
virtue. His observations concerning pride are indeed a sober
warning. Spiritual pride holds a place of special contempt,
we note, in the preaching of Jesus in the gospels. Humility
enjoys a corresponding position of divine blessing. The severity
of this judgment also increases relative to one's power over
others.39 Niebuhr is surely correct in his cautions concerning
the dangers of pride in public issues. We must never identify
God's will with our theological and political agenda.
Yet in the classics of the spiritual life, humility is a function
of one's grasp, not an abstraction of the human condition,
but of truth, as expressed in God's revealed law-in Scripture
and also in nature, human and nonhuman. It is in "having
the truth," a real and growing appreciation of how far
one falls short of God's demands, that human pride is punctured
and humility instilled. Especially in the Reformed tradition
to which Niebuhr ostensibly belongs, the very purpose of the
moral law is to humble humanity and to bring it into an awareness
of its sinful state and need for salvation.40
Humility is not, however, achieved by acclamation, and something
other than humility may be at work in fallibilist argumentation.
In some instances, Michael Polanyi points out, "the emphatic
admission of our fallibility only serves to reaffirm our claim
to a fictitious standard of intellectual integrity and to
bring out the shining qualities of our open mind, in contrast
to the hidebound attitude of those who openly profess their
beliefs as their final personal commitment."41 The plea
for humility may actually mask the demand that believers surrender
their own commitments in the name of an unidentified, superceding
public morality.
Genuine humility should not force a tradition to view its
commitments objectively, as simply "its form of religion"
or "its cult," as in Niebuhr's solution. Stanley
Hauerwas remarks, "From many Jewish and Catholic perspectives
. . . such an account of humility appears to be asking them
to understand their convictions in terms laid down by Protestant
liberal theology... Humility... becomes an extraordinary weapon
to still debate by Niebuhrians. Anyone who challenges the
fundamental structure of their assumptions automatically becomes
`authoritarian."' Niebuhr might "praise democracy's
capacity to sustain conflict, but in effect the conflict democracy
allows is well policed. Nowhere is that more evident than
in the exclusion from the politics of democracy of any religious
convictions that are not `humble."' 42
Niebuhr's system assumes a privileged position epistemologically.
Part of his project is to commend Christianity, or his version
of it, to its cultured despisers. To the modem mind, religious
intolerance-the Crusades, the Inquisition, Servetus, and all
that-is a primary cause of Christianity's implausibility.
Niebuhr is commending Christianity here by holding up a dialectic
he thinks they can or do accept and Christianity as the best
interpretation of that universally acceptable dialectic and
the best solution "in principle" for the problem
of intolerance. Christianity is a useful tool of social justice.43
Like all rationales for toleration, Niebuhr's aims to convince
the widest possible number of hearers on behalf of the widest
possible number of people needing toleration. But if toleration
is always based on belief, as this essay contends, and Niebuhr
has eliminated the convictions of orthodox Christianity, then
on what beliefs) is his toleration based?
TOLERANCE AND THE LIBERAL TRADITION
Niebuhr's theory of religious toleration displays a greater
commitment to a secularized understanding of the liberal tradition
than to the Christian tradition. Its argument is a staple
of Enlightenment argumentation for toleration.44 It almost
always demonstrates indifference or hostility to the contested
alternatives of faith or practice. Although Niebuhr says that
tolerance is not indifference, there is a good deal of orthodox
theology about which he is indifferent. Secular liberalism
sometimes attempts to force us to check our "comprehensive"
or tradition-based standards at the door to the public square.
Niebuhr is trying to convince us to leave them at home, but
he follows the same line of reasoning.
Niebuhr presents a view of individuals and communities as
free to choose and to bracket their conclusions with regard
to other individuals and communities. While we have some discretion
in the application of our commitments, communities of faith
and their members are not "unencumbered" as they
make their way in the world. We do not choose the dictates
of conscience. We cannot simultaneously indwell truth received
from authority outside the self and also choose autonomously
what we will regard as true. Only late in the game did he
recognize that the Catholic Church, for example, could not
simply adopt his view of toleration:
Since the Church lives by these claims [concerning truth and
the mediation of grace] and wins the obedience of the faithful
by their power, it is useless to seek an accommodation on
this issue. One must simply be grateful that in the modem
world no one forces us to accept the Catholic faith, and be
appreciative of the spirit of charity and the wisdom of pragmatic
adjustment to the new culture which the Church generates in
spite of claims which logically would lead to fanaticism.45
Although Niebuhr underlines the relevance of Christian redemption
for modem society and sees the second coming and the resurrection
of the body as "symbols" of redemption in social
history, the church as described in the New Testament has
little place in his thought. William Wolf suggests that for
Niebuhr "some elements in the Renaissance and modem secularism
have been `hidden churches' in emancipating man from ecclesiastical
sinfulness."46
Niebuhr's modem and unencumbered view of the self is due in
large part to his existential epistemology. In his early writing,
he frequently distinguishes his theology from the absence
of transcendence in theological liberalism. His own treatment
of divine transcendence, however, is almost exclusively in
terms of individual experience. Niebuhr claims no authority
for his observations and recognizes no ultimate authority
apart from personal encounter with God.47
Ronald Stone also notes Niebuhr's affinity for James Madison's
federalist vision of public life?48 Madison wanted a strong
federal government as a means of offsetting the potentially
destabilizing power of "factions" with a more centralized
balance of power. Michael Sandel has traced the historical
development of federal centralization and its cost to other
communities, including communities of discourse.49 Niebuhr
is sympathetic to this configuration of power. In spite of
his efforts to apply theology to public life, Niebuhr's work
actually helped to undermine the church's prophetic calling.
His first three books were on "religion," viewed
as a necessary component of civilization and public life.
This utilitarian view of religion lends itself to the classical
liberal political position. Here the church's social mission
is not the transformation of the social order into conformity
with the biblical vision of freedom, justice, community, and
peace. Niebuhrian realism instead limits its mission to the
religious support of a secular liberal agenda and its understanding
of freedom and justice.50
Sandel has shown that the liberal ideal of religious liberty
in recent Supreme Court rulings does not give the same protection
to believers as unbelievers. This formulation does not comprehend
the difference between choices based in personal discretion,
on the one hand, and those based in tradition, grace, or authority
on the other.51 It does not even see choices based in the
latter framework as free choices and therefore does not see
them as authentic.52 Sandel notes that the priority of the
right over the good comes from a vision of the self as unencumbered
by any choices it does not make for itself. In this vision,
the self is that which makes associations rather than being
made by them. Encumbered selves therefore do not enjoy the
same status. The strongest encumbrances are religious since,
in the understanding of several religious traditions, we do
not choose God, God chooses us. As Kenneth Craycraft observes,
the Court "has assumed that state 'neutrality' toward
religion is essential to protecting all selves, but the only
selves they recognize as legitimate are 'unencumbered' ones,
those who impugn the legitimacy of religious truth that 'imposes'
itself upon the mind or soul."53 The unencumbered self,
says Sandel, "is denied ... the possibility of membership
in any community bound by moral ties antecedent to choice;
he cannot belong to any community where the self itself could
be at stake."54 The Court favors nonreligion or secularism
to religion.
MURRAY AND DISTINCTIONS
Religious toleration as defined above moves between the boundaries
of the theological, the social/ethical, and the political.
It deals with truth and error, with behavior towards co-religionists
and religious opponents, and with the coercive power of the
state. Many arguments for religious toleration fail to distinguish
between these questions. In previous eras, theologians simply
declared, "Error has no rights," forgetting that
humans do have rights. Others pleaded that the wheat and the
tares must be left to grow up together, ignoring the question
of the state's responsibility for order and justice. Secularists,
on the other hand, have often rejected any relationship between
theology and public life and, in the extreme, have acted as
if good and evil have equal footing before the law.
Niebuhr commits a similar confusion of categories. He assumes
that unless belief in the finality of any truth in the theological
realm is suspended, spiritual pride will translate immediately
into coercion. The most important problem with this aspect
of his theory may be that it ignores entirely the distinctions
between church, society, and state.
In an obvious allusion to Niebuhr, John Courtney Murray criticizes
the methodology of "ambiguists." The basic error
of the ambiguists is their undifferentiated structure of morality.
Issues of public policy can only be stated in terms of "paradox"
fraught with "dilemmas" and forever caught in an
inextricable mix of "creative and destructive possibilities"
for the ambiguists. This is because, according to Murray,
they equate public and private morality: "In point of
sheer method there is no reason why the ambiguist should not
make use of a conceptual scheme to guide his analysis of political
fact, and to furnish the terms for his statement of moral
issues, and to determine the style of his theory in favor
of his solutions. Every moralist does this."55
Reinhold Niebuhr is probably best known for his ethics of
"Christian realism." He often criticized those who
tried to construct public policy from the raw material of
the Sermon on the Mount and emphasized the inevitability of
coercion. But as Murray notes, while the moral ambiguists
easily dispense of the fundamentalists and the secular liberal
views for their utopianisms, they are equally one-dimensional
in their definition of human nature.56 Niebuhr tries to ground
toleration solely in the theological dimension, his understanding
of human nature; his existential dialectic is the only adequate
foundation for toleration.
Toleration focuses primarily on individuals and religious
communities and only marginally on the power they have over
others through the state. It does not ask by what right groups
have such control over the state. Yet in the final analysis,
the free exercise of religion is a juridical question. Only
the state has the power to coerce. Religious liberty is immunity
from coercion. (Simply framing the question as an issue of
"liberty" rather than "toleration" moves
the focus more clearly into the political realm.) A more adequate
treatment than Niebuhr gives would have to ask how such immunity,
along with positive empowerment, can be secured in the political
realm.57 For Niebuhr, the issues involved in the transition
from "tolerance" to "liberty" are not
even on the horizon.
Murray, however, has clearly defined the ends involved in
this move. First, what the church requires from the state
is freedom.58 Second, Murray's concept of human dignity provides
a principle of freedom at the level of personal confession
and private practice of diverse or dissenting religious convictions.
It is a violation of human dignity to force any individual
to subscribe to a creed with which he or she does not agree.
At the level of the public practice of religion and its social
implications, however, things become more complicated. Following
through on the conclusion of the first section, above-that
religious toleration/liberty is based in belief-how should
Christian communities justify toleration? How do we justify
tolerating public manifestations of beliefs we believe to
be false and harmful to civic life, assuming these manifestations
do not undermine public order? "Human dignity" cannot
be given free reign to function as an autonomous principle
if there is any danger of compromising our theological convictions
concerning human rights and duties before God.
Murray here affirms two things concerning human sociality.
First, the human person is "the subject, foundation,
and end of the entire social life." But second, the person
exists in the presence of God, and the juridical order flowing
from human nature cannot be separated from the moral order
before God any more than the person can be divided. It is
through some grasp of this understanding of human nature that
societies have come increasingly to recognize all people as
free and equal.59
In the event of any reading of "human dignity" in
Murray that could be used to justify the public celebration
of falsehood, we can turn instead to another facet, Murray's
constant emphasis on the virtue of wisdom in jurisprudence.
The historical and the political are never the realm of the
ideal. In view of the historical situation and our need for
peace and unity, however thin the basis, it is indeed best
to allow "as much freedom as possible, as much coercion
as necessary."60 The purpose of the state is in no small
measure concerned with the compromises of our fallen existence.
To the extent that it appeals to what all people everywhere
should be able to understand, the justification of religious
liberty I can take from Murray has the possibility for a widespread
consensus. It does not pretend to appeal to every actual rationality.
To the extent that it recognizes the real odds for such a
consensus in a pluralist society, it is simply another modus
vivendi accommodation. Whatever the political consequences
for Christians of various stripes, a limited reading of human
dignity has more theological integrity than an expansive understanding
that will inevitably drift from any mooring in natural or
revealed theology.61 For Christians, the principle of religious
liberty for beliefs and practices we oppose morally should
find its justification in our desire to protect what we value
as much or more: a context of civil peace, the removal of
stumbling blocks to belief, our convictions about the dangers
of establishment to church and state alike, the communal integrity
of the church, and many other concerns. The arguments for
religious liberty we advance in public may not be identical,
and there is no hypocrisy in seeking consensus in this way.
Though we should not hide our theologically based justifications,
we cannot expect others to accept or even understand them.
We must not, however, betray our public convictions by underwriting
a secular version of the liberal tradition.
Inasmuch as religious toleration relates to our apprehension
of the truth, it depends not on skepticism, doubt, "humility,"
or any suspension of our faith commitments, but on belief.
Toleration, where it exists, always depends on "having,"
rather than "not having, the truth."
Kelly Alvin Madden is an analyst with the International Ministries
of Campus Crusade for Christ.
Footnotes:
John Murray Cuddihy, No Offense: Civil Religion and Protestant
Taste (New York: Seabury, 1978), 25-47.
2This is the title of Chapter 8 in Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature
and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, vol. 2: Human
Destiny (New York: Scribner's, 1943), 213-43 (hereafter, ND2).
3Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian
Interpretation, vol. 1: Human Nature (New York: Scribner's,
1941), 203 (hereafter, NDI).
4ND2, 213. SIbid., 219. 6Ibid., 214.
71bid., 215, 213, 219. 8NDI, 200-1. 9ND2, 243,239, 222. i*Ibid.,
239 n. 25. "Ibid., 243.
12Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children
of Light and the Children of Darkness: A indication of Democracy
and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense (New York: Scribner's,
1944), 134-5 (emphasis added).
13ND2, 236.
14Reinhold Niebuhr, Essays in Applied Christianity, ed. D.
B. Robertson (New York: Meridian, 1959), 236.
15ND2, 219.
16Niebuhr, Children of Light, 30.
17ND2, 238, 219.
"Peter P Nicholson, "Toleration as a Moral Ideal,"
in Aspects of Toleration: Philosophical Studies, ed. John
Horton and Susan Mendus (New York: Methuan, 1985), 159-62.
19See especially Niebuhr, Children of Light, 130 and Reinhold
Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (New York:
Seabury, 1935), 139.
20J. Budziszewski, True Tolerance: Liberalism and the Necessity
of Judgment (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1992),
269.
2TIbid., 226. 221bid., 10.
23Richard Tuck, "Scepticism and Toleration in the Seventeenth
Century" and Alan Ryan, "A More Tolerant Hobbes?"
in Justifying Toleration: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives,
ed. Susan Mendus (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988),
8, 21-60.
24ND2,235 IL 18.
2ihy, No Offense, 25-47.
2,Tdm Cod bray Religious LIberty: Catholic Struggkes wi* Pun,
ed J. .Law Hooper (: John Kw;1993).
rrN, Children of Light, 136-7.
2sCited in ND2, 236.
29A. L. Morton, The World of the Ranters: Religious Radicalism
in the English Revolution (London: Lawrence & Wishart,
1970), 59; cf. 45-69.
3ND2, 239 n. 25.
3'David L. Smith, Oliver Cromwell: Politics and Religion in
the English Revolution, 1640-1658 (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1991), 58.
32ND2, 233,235.
33"All human knowledge is tainted with an 'ideological'
taint. It pretends to be more true than it is. It is finite
knowledge, gained from a particular perspective; but it pretends
to be final and ultimate knowledge" (NDI, 194).
34Edward John Carnell, The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), 239.
35ND2, 217-8, referring to Paul Tillich, The Interpretation
of History (New York: Scribner, 1936), 169, 170.
6arnell, Theology of Niebuhr, 240.
37Tillich, Interpretation of History, 170 (emphasis added).
38Carnell, Theology of Niebuhr, 241.
39See, for example, Matt 5:1-12; 18:23-25; Luke 7:41-43; 18:9-14.
4For example, John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
II.ii. 11; II.vii.3.
4'Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical
Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 271.
42Stanley Hauerwas, "The Democratic Policing of Christianity,"
Pro Ecclesia 3 (1994), 227, 229.
43 See ND2, 220.
44"What is toleration? It is a necessary consequence
of our being human. We all are products of frailty: fallible,
and prone to error. So let us mutually pardon each other's
follies. This is the first principle of the law of nature,
the first principle of all human rights" (Voltaire, quoted
in Karl Popper, "Toleration and Intellectual Responsibility,"
in On Toleration, ed. Susan Mendus and David Edwards [Oxford:
Clarendon, 1987], 18).
45 Reinhold Niebuhr, "A Plea for Tolerance," Atlantic
Monthly 210 (August 1961), 76. William John Wolf, "Reinhold
Niebuhr's Doctrine of Man," in Reinhold Niebuhr: His
Religious, Social, and Political Thought, ed. Charles W. Kegley
and Robert W. Bretall (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 248-9.
"See Gustave Weigel, "Authority in Theology,"
in Reinhold Niebuhr: His Religious, Social, and Political
Thought, 2:368-77.
"Ronald H. Stone, Reinhold Niebuhr: Prophet to Politicians
(Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981), 167.
49See Michael J. Sandel, "The Political Theory of the
Procedural Republic," in Reinhold Niebuhr Today, ed.
Richard John Neuhaus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 27-32
and Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public
Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996).
5*Gary J. Dorrien, "Communitarianism, Christian Realism,
and the Crisis of Progressive Christianity," Cross Currents
47 (1997), 364-78. See also George J. Williamson, "A
Niebuhrian Critique of Niebuhrian Thought," Andover Newton
Quarterly 15 (1975), 182-95.
5'Michael Sandel, "Freedom of Conscience or Freedom of
Conscience or Freedom of Choice?" in Articles of Faith,
Articles of Peace, ed. James Davison Hunter and Os Guinness
(Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1990), 74-92.
52See the reference to the work of Charles Taylor in Kenneth
R. Craycraft Jr., The American Myth of Religious Freedom (Dallas:
Spence Publishing, 1999), 4.
53 Ibid., 5-6.
5Michael Sandel, "Procedural Republic and Unencumbered
Self," Political Theory 12 (1984), 87. See also Susan
Mendus, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism (Atlantic
Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1989).
55John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections
on the American Proposition (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1960),
282.
561bid., 285.
5?On the transition from toleration to respect for the person,
see Susan Mendus, ed., Justifying Toleration: Conceptual and
Historical Perspectives (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1988) and John Courtney Murray, Religious Liberty: Catholic
Struggles with Pluralism, ed. J. Leon Hooper (Louisville:
Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 229-44.
581bid., 212. Murray suggests that other Christian communities
use the same rationale as the Catholic Church (see John Courtney
Murray, "Religious Liberty and Development of Doctrine,"
The Catholic World 204 [1967], 281).
59Murray, Religious Liberty, 238-9. Murray states here that
he is building on something begun by Pius XII and John XXIII.
60"Let there be as much freedom, personal and social,
as is possible; let there be only as much coercion and constraint,
personal or social, as may be necessary for public order"
(ibid., 145; see also 239).
6'Witness this drift, in spite of the authors' intentions,
in Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism
and Commitment in American Life (New York: Harper & Row,
1985), 142.
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