© 2009 Max Masotti
© 2009 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Tolerance: From the Latin tolerare, to support. Disposition to admit in others ways of thinking, acting, feelings different from our own. In social life, the most useful virtue is tolerance.
Intolerance: Hateful, aggressive attitude towards those with whom one differs in opinion or belief.
Tolerance is one of the fruits of the spirit, a very big word, which, taken literally, can make us people devoid of a sense of judgment. But, a question arises: should we push tolerance to the point of tolerating intolerance? What would become of a world with limitless tolerance?
- Tolerate the most serious vices.
- Tolerate the most absurd ideals.
- Tolerate the intolerable.
The American philosopher John Rawls, in his work of moral philosophy A Theory of Justice, establishes that tolerance is a virtue necessary for the establishment of a just society. But he asks the question “Should we tolerate the intolerant?”. Rawls answers positively, indicating that not tolerating them would be intolerant and therefore an injustice. On the other hand, he establishes that a tolerant society has the right, and the duty, to protect itself and that this imposes a limit on tolerance: a society has no obligation to tolerate acts or members dedicated to its extermination.
It becomes a vicious circle; should we tolerate everything or not and to what extent should we tolerate? A man who practices tolerance to excess can become an imbecile and fall into that imbecility which makes him lose his sense of reality. Tolerance can be the open door to all excesses, because under the cover of this word, everyone could allow themselves anything.
We must therefore add to this tolerance a fair judgment of what is feasible or not: what Jesus knew how to do so well. The Master was a tolerant being but, when he chased the merchants from the temple who had tolerated making the Father’s house a place that allowed them to enrich themselves, it was normal, unless he fell into imbecility, that Jesus stopped this tolerance and applied justice in a sacred place (which some could interpret as intolerance).
We are aware that it is right to try to practice tolerance towards others but, with a sense of reality and balanced judgment because, when faced with another person, tolerance opens doors, intolerance closes them however, where tolerance ends, intolerance begins.
But above all, let us not defend the point of view of the Marquis de Sade who said: “Tolerance is the virtue of the weak”. I would prefer to quote Jules Lemaître who declared that: “Tolerance is the charity of intelligence”, or that of Horace who related that: “Patience makes tolerable what cannot be prevented”. They were both right.
Historically, the first notion of tolerance is that defended by John Locke in his Letter on Tolerance, which is defined by the formula “stop fighting what cannot be changed”, however, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe stated: “If I am a fool, I am tolerated; if I am right, I am insulted”.
But then what is tolerance? Vladimir Jankélévitch tells us that tolerance is a temporary moment and that it allows those who do not love each other to support each other, while waiting to be able to love each other. Some couples will recognize themselves in this quote but, I prefer that of Pauline Vaillancourt who informs us that the spirit of tolerance is the art of being happy in the company of others or, that of Gilles Perrault who tells us that tolerance is civilization par excellence however, my choice falls rather on a Persian proverb which mentions that the tranquility of two worlds rests on these two words: benevolence towards friends, tolerance towards enemies, and I find in this quote what the Master could have expressed.
It is true that living in society, in modern societies, means learning to coexist in one’s differences, to organize freedoms and respect for others, but for us, Gauls, would it be possible to practice tolerance like that of the Danes who accept that a neo-Nazi radio station broadcasts perfectly legally 6 hours a week and who think that it is better to let them express themselves, like that everyone sees how stupid and ridiculous they are?
I very much doubt it and yet tolerance is indeed defined as the capacity to take it upon oneself in order to endure and allow what is unpleasant to us to exist.
The fact of tolerating something, of admitting with a certain passivity, sometimes with condescension, what one would have the power to prohibit, the right to prevent, is also the state of mind of someone open to others and admitting ways of thinking and acting different from one’s own.
In reality, tolerance is circumscribed by two limits, the refusal of uniform regulation, on the one hand, and of the intolerable, on the other, but, given this, would Benedict XVI be wrong in forcing people not to use condoms to try to stem AIDS?
Is this requirement part of religious tolerance?
Shouldn’t religious tolerance be limited to an attitude adopted towards different confessions of faith or towards public demonstrations of different religions? For example, the Edict of Tolerance of 1787 (France) authorizes the construction of places of worship for Protestants on condition that their bell tower is lower than that of Catholic churches.
Tolerating beliefs other than our own means that we admit a sort of equality between different human groups and that we grant everyone the right to seek and formulate their own ideal.
Can we, simultaneously, persist in our own faith, therefore believing that we are on the side of truth and good, and, nevertheless, respect the faith of others?
Yes, if we agree to practice tolerance.
We often forget that in its beginnings, the Hebrew people were not monotheistic, but monolatrous (worshiping only one god) and that they had no ambition to impose their God on their neighbors who had their own.
The true Church does not reside in any particular place in this world, but in the heart of every man or woman of good will. Hasn’t someone famous said something like this?
How many times have I asked myself by what strange phenomenon could “the word of God” resonate so differently when it spreads among men?
Looking for an explanation, I thought of those glass flutes which, when struck, each sound a note of their own; the tone obtained depends on the material they are made of (soul? personality?), their shape (education? culture?), as well as the level of the liquid they contain (faith? speech?), the prettiest sound not always being produced by the fullest cup…
It would be intolerable of me if I did not cite Voltaire and his plea for tolerance, which he produced to repair the miscarriage of justice following the unjust death of Jean Calas (1763).
Chapter XXIII: “Prayer to God”
It is therefore no longer to men that I address myself; it is to you, God of all beings, of all worlds and of all times: if it is permitted to weak creatures lost in the immensity, and imperceptible to the rest of the universe, to dare to ask you something, to you who have given everything, to you whose decrees are immutable as eternal, deign to look with pity on the errors attached to our nature; may these errors not be our calamities. You have not given us a heart to hate each other, and hands to slaughter each other; etc.etc.
What is important in UB is not so much the discovery of the values that we can read there, but rather what we can discover in ourselves, by reflecting on what we read there.
And what do we read about tolerance?
UB 139:6.8 — UB 100:4.4 — UB 140:8.13 — UB 146:2.13 12 — UB 156:5.18 — UB 193:2.2 -
“Peace be upon you. You rejoice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead because you thereby know that you and your brethren shall also survive mortal death. But such survival is dependent on your having been previously born of the spirit of truth-seeking and God-finding. The bread of life and the water thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righteousness—for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the kingdom. These great truths and these universe facts are all related to this gospel in that they are a part of the result of believing the good news and are embraced in the subsequent experience of those who, by faith, become, in deed and in truth, the everlasting sons of the eternal God. My Father sent me into the world to proclaim this salvation of sonship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this salvation of sonship. Salvation is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will immediately begin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in loving service to their fellow creatures. And the fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace. If professed believers bear not these fruits of the divine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are useless branches on the living vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Father requires of the children of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, therefore, you are not fruitful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your unfruitful branches. Increasingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you progress heavenward in the kingdom of God. You may enter the kingdom as a child, but the Father requires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spiritual adulthood. And when you go abroad to tell all nations the good news of this gospel, I will go before you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you.” (UB 193:2.2)
Max Masotti