Imparato, Mary C.. On religious toleration: prudence and charity in Augustine, Aquinas, and Tocqueville. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-g7bd-cr48
DescriptionThis work seeks to explore the concept of religious toleration as it has been conceived by key thinkers at important junctures in the history of the West in the hopes of identifying some of the animating principles at work in societies confronted with religious difference and dissent. One can observe that, at a time when the political influence of the Catholic Church was ascendant and then in an era of Church hegemony, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas respectively, faced with religious dissent, argue for toleration in some cases and coercion in others. While, from a contemporary liberal standpoint, one may be tempted to judge their positions to be opportunistic, harsh, or authoritarian, if we read them in the context of their social realities and operative values, we can better understand their stances as emanating ultimately from prudence (that virtue integrating truth and practice) and charity (the love of God and neighbor). With the shattering of Christian unity and the decoupling of throne and altar that occurs in the early modern period, the context for religious toleration is radically altered. Alexis de Tocqueville seeks a toleration of religion within the liberal political order, and again we see prudence and charity, manifested in an attention to what is possible in a given reality, play an important role. In contemporary political life, however, we find marginalization of and even hostility towards religion. Perhaps, in examining the operation of religious toleration in the past and carefully assessing the arguments for the central place of religion, we can draw lessons for a political future not marked by liberal neutrality and walls of separation, but the care for the soul and the common good.