Hermann Cohen and the Humane Intolerance of Ethical Monotheism

Abstract

It should not be surprising that given the current political climate in both the international and domestic arenas that many scholars have turned their attention to the relationship of monotheism and intolerance.1 More specifically, the focus of such research is the apparent incompatibility of the worldview more or less shared by the Abrahamic monotheisms and contemporary principles such as pluralism and tolerance. While there have been some responses to these writings in defense of monotheism,2 my intention in this essay is to explore the position of perhaps the greatest thinker of liberal Judaism, Hermann Cohen, whose relevant Jewish works were produced almost a century before these critiques (and defenses) of monotheism emerged. Cohen not only anticipates the arguments of the critics of monotheism but provides a remarkable and unique solution that ameliorates the violence inherent in monotheistic intolerance.3