A Defensible Conception of Tolerance in Aquinas?

Abstract

1 See J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 215. In the page that follows Rawls provides equally simplistic references for the attitudes of the Protestant Reformers towards tolerance. 291 The Thomist 75 (2011): 291-308 A DEFENSIBLE CONCEPTION OF TOLERANCE IN AQUINAS? MANFRED SVENSSON Universidad de los Andes Santiago de Chile INTRODUCTION: A COHERENT THEORY OF TOLERANCE? D OES AQUINAS HAVE a theory of tolerance that is not only “understandable in its own context” but defensible in our context? The question is not an easy one to answer and has, in fact, been given opposite answers. This should come as no surprise, since at first sight the diverse articles in the Summa Theologiae that deal with tolerance seem to be written in a spirit very different from each other. When Aquinas explicitly asks, for example, whether heretics must be tolerated, the answer seems to consist in an unqualified denial of tolerance (STh II-II, q. 11, a. 3). On other occasions, however, he speaks on behalf of the tolerance of actions or rites that he clearly describes as sins. This, as is well known, is his position regarding prostitution as well as regarding Jewish religious ceremonies (STh II-II, q. 10, a.11). Naturally, from these two kinds of texts opposite images of Aquinas are projected into the secondary literature regarding tolerance. When John Rawls, for instance, writes that Aquinas and the Protestant Reformers did not even acknowledge the limited tolerance that Locke or Rousseau later promoted,1 he supports his interpretation with reference to only one proof-text: question 11, article 3 of the Secunda Secundae, the question concerning MANFRED SVENSSON 292 2 See, e.g., E. Téllez, “Tomás de Aquino como Antecedente Medieval de la Tolerancia Moderna,” Tópicos 36 (2009): 37-63. 3 See R. Forst, Toleranz im Konflikt (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003), 91-96. 4 J. Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political and Legal Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), vii. 5 J. Knasas, Thomism and Tolerance (Scranton and London: University of Scranton Press, 2011), 7. 6 In fact, none of these texts are even quoted until the very last chapters of his work. tolerance of heretics, which Aquinas answers negatively. Other authors, wishing to evoke the image of a tolerant Aquinas, simply disregard this passage, quoting instead diverse texts from which a more tolerant author seems to emerge—for instance, texts in which we see a Christian in dialogue with Muslim philosophers.2 There are also those who are more willing to admit the existence of texts pointing in both directions in the work of Aquinas.3 Some try to give us reasons to privilege the more “tolerant” texts, or to go beyond mere tolerance to full-fledged freedom of religion. This kind of project, which can be found for instance in the work of John Finnis, rests on the idea that one can make an “internal” correction of the system: that “some serious flaws” which can be found in Aquinas’s thoughts on human society can be criticized on the basis of “premises he himself understood and articulated better” than his own masters and successors.4 John F. X. Knasas, in his recent Thomism and Tolerance, holds a similar position, arguing for what he calls “fraternal tolerance,” a perspective that widens the concept of tolerance to include our engagement, respect, and sympathy for the other.5 Accordingly, the texts where Aquinas speaks about tolerance proper play no decisive role in Knasas’s argument.6 The preceding summary suggests that contemporary scholarship has been largely unable to draw a coherent and defensible view of tolerance from the texts in which Aquinas addresses this topic. That is the goal of the present article. Thus, I will not argue for freedom of religion, nor even for respect. Such freedom and such respect are great things indeed, things that deserve to be defended. But it is also a good thing to have an adequate theory of mere tolerance, and the limited goal of the present article is to show that Aquinas does have one. Furthermore, while I agree with TOLERANCE IN AQUINAS? 293 7 For a good version of the...