A Letter Concerning Toleration
I think what we find above is what today is embraced by many who styles themselves as advocates of “Principled Pluralism.”
1.) These types of chaps are all for toleration and pluralism of religions in one social order as long as it principled and so reasonable. However, the minute one advocates for “principled pluralism,” and a “reasonable toleration,” one has rejected a pluralism that could include a religion that insists “Thou Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me,” for a religion that insists, “Thou Shall Have Other Gods Along With Me.” You see, the God of the Bible does not allow for “reasonable tolerance,” or for “principled pluralism,” because a reasonable tolerance does not allow for His intolerance and a principled pluralism does not have enough plurality in it to allow for a God who allows no plurality.
2.) Locke denies toleration to those who tolerate the denial of the being of God. Subsequently, Locke affirms that the public square can be flooded with all the gods of all those who affirm the being of God. Only atheists it seems, need not apply. The problem here is that the position of allowing all the gods in the public square is not a great deal different than allowing none of the gods in the public square. If all the gods are in then no God is really God and so the State is the only entity left who must decide how far any one of these different gods are allowed to go in the public square. In essence Locke’s position makes the state the God over the gods.
3.) Locke forbad the atheist from creating a system that forbad all religion but he ended up creating a system that likewise forbad all religion except the religion that had the State as its head, determining how far any one god or god could or could not go in the public square. This is where Locke’s system eventually led. Locke’s principled pluralism finally did what he feared the atheist would do … Locke’s principled pluralism destroyed all religion save the religion that announces that “in the state we live and move and have our being.” We live in the condition that Locked feared … “all is dissolved.”
4.) Locke, like many today, did not understand that religion is an inescapable category wherein one and only one religion must dominate. The religion that Locke bequeathed to us, through our Founders, is a religion wherein the God of the Bible is not allowed to be the sole God over the public square. Instead, Locked bequeathed to us a system where the State, acting as the god over all the gods in the tolerant public square, determines what is and is not allowed in terms of morality, religion, and law.
5.) It is true that the atheist can “have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration,” but what Locke didn’t also see as true is that the principled pluralist can “have no pretence because of his tolerance principle whereupon to challenge the privilege of any god, from Allah to the Talmudist Demon God to Buddha to the Flying Spaghetti Monster God, to the God of the Mormons (much the same as the previous one mentioned) the privilege of toleration.” If all the gods are welcomed in then none of the gods are welcomed in. If all the gods are welcomed in then the state must be the GOD who rules over all the gods.
6.) In the last clause Locke basically says other religions can be allowed in a social order as long as they mind their own business. The problem here is that it is the very nature of religion to establish domination over others and so Locke is saying… “As long as other religions do not do what religions do they can be tolerated here.” That doesn’t strike me as a very good principle by which to support principled pluralism.
Principled pluralism was not a good principle even when the whole nation was still largely a nation consisting of squabbling protestant denominations (with Maryland as Roman Catholic and Rhode Island as Anabaptist) each seeking hegemony (Rhode Island finally won). It’s even a worse principle today when the whole “nation” consists of squabbling religions, the chief of which is the religion of no religion — those who call themselves “atheists,” or “no-religion.”
The Principled pluralism of Locke wanted a nation that allowed for tolerance and the presence of sundry expressions of Christianity. What it eventually birthed was a nation that has the presence of sundry religions with no tolerance for the one true religion of Christianity.
