Monotheism and Tolerance: Recovering a Religion of Reason

1 Monotheism, Tolerance, and Pluralism: The Current Impasse

Monotheism, Tolerance, and Pluralism the current impasse The contemporary values of tolerance and pluralism, so often the object of unhesitating praise, nevertheless pose significant challenges for religious life, at least as it is commonly understood by many major religious traditions. If the religious adherent cedes too much to these principles then she compromises the very foundations of the grand tradition she has inherited or adopted. Yet the dangers of not recognizing these principles, as the news daily attests, leads to endless violence and misery. The present world-historical situation suggests that this problem is particularly acute in regard to the Abrahamic-monotheistic religions, i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The structural antagonism and hostility toward the Other1 which thrives unrestrained in the more extreme strands of these traditions cannot stand unchallenged if we seek to live in peaceful societies. And yet, calls for tolerance and pluralism either go unheeded or only further exacerbate the situation, given that those who make them fail to take into account the contours of the symbolic or discursive structure shared by the Abrahamic religions.2 Indeed as the calls for tolerance and pluralism, usually made by secularists and religious liberals, grow stronger in the public arena, one cannot help but notice the growing backlash against them. While I certainly do not wish to claim that the dramatic surge in fundamentalist movements is solely a negative reaction to the increased prominence of the principles of tolerance and pluralism in public life, it is nevertheless no mere coin1 4   |   Ov ercoming the Current Crisis cidence that this phenomenon is manifesting itself with such distressing intensity at the same time as these principles receive increasing emphasis in public life. There is clearly a link between the prominence of tolerance and pluralism in the public sphere and the strong reaffirmations, by more and more religious movements, of the truth and authority of accounts of revelation which seem inimical to these principles. Are more conservative, traditionalistic conceptions of the monotheistic worldview simply incommensurable with the principles of tolerance and pluralism? When religious traditions find themselves in tension with these principles, to what degree, if at all, should they change in order to accommodate them? Indeed, is the discourse surrounding tolerance and pluralism adequately nuanced to address the complexities of religious life? Or does it possess blind spots and prejudices that make it problematic ? These vitally important questions must be addressed. And while it would undoubtedly be beneficial, given our present world-historical situation , if monotheistic religions could find more fruitful ways of dealing with Others than hostility (whether implicit or explicit), which all too frequently emerges in situations involving diversity, this does not justify an unqualified celebration of the principles of tolerance or pluralism. Indeed, secularists and religious liberals haranguing fundamentalists and conservative traditionalists to adopt the principles of tolerance and pluralism, or chastising them for their failure to do so, will not accomplish the reforms they desire. If monotheistic religions are going to constructively deal with their predisposition to agonistic relationships with the Other, and thus to intolerance, then such measures must originate and find their basis within these traditions themselves.3 One attempt to ameliorate violent intolerance from within a specific monotheistic tradition—or rather, a particular religious-philosophical tradition of such attempts—can be found in the works of Moses Mendelssohn, Immanuel Kant, and Hermann Cohen. These figures attempt to reconfigure the moments of the discursive structure shared by the Abrahamic monotheisms, so as to ameliorate the monotheistic intolerance which is directed toward the Other without vitiating the monotheistic structure itself . Unlike so many of their contemporaries, and unlike so much secular philosophy and liberal theology (Jewish and Christian) at present, regarding religious tolerance and pluralism, these thinkers of what I call the ‘religion of reason trajectory’ preserve the basic structure of the monotheistic worldview, including such notions as election and world-historic mission, while still accounting for the social and political aspects—which necessarily involve living and interacting with the Other—of modern existence. As such, their efforts are not only strikingly different from alternative approaches to this vexing problem, but they are also more promising. Monotheism, Tolerance, and Pluralism   |   5 Ironically, while Kant—by far the most famous and influential of these three figures—is included in this study, he takes on a rather marginal status within the religion of reason trajectory. Kant is of course the only nonJewish thinker in this trajectory...