Tolerant because Christianity itself is a hybrid tradition: a response to Nicholas Wolterstorff’s ‘Toleration, Justice and Dignity’

Abstract

In Nicholas Wolterstorff’s ‘Toleration, Justice and Dignity’, he argues for tolerance between religious traditions on the basis of human dignity. In this response to his paper, I argue that a general philosophical argument from human dignity will at best lead to indifference or mere praise, but not true tolerance. In the second part of the paper, I offer a sketch of a distinctly Christian way of arguing for tolerance towards adherents of other religions, namely on the basis of the insight that Christianity itself is a hybrid tradition.

Keywords:

• Wolterstoff
• law
• gospel
• tolerance
• human dignity
• reformed tradition

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Marcel Sarot for his comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. D’Costa, Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered.

2. Moyaert, Fragile Identities.

3. Cf. Webster, “Theologies of Retrieval”; Crisp, Retrieving Doctrine, preface.

4. Schwöbel, “Gesetz und Evangelium.”

5. For example, Heim, The Depth of the Riches; D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity; Kärkkäinen, Trinity and Religious Pluralism.

6. See the recent discussion at Slenczka, “Texte zum Alten Testament.”

7. Voetius, Selectae disputationes theologicae, deel IV, 26, ‘Iam vero Evangelium stricte dictum, ut à lege distinguitur, directe & per se non praescribit nobis officium nostrum, aut quid nos facere debeamus, dicendo, hoc fac, aut crede, aut confide; […] Sed refert, nuntiat, significat nobis, quid Christus pro nobis fecerit, quidque Deus in Christo promittat, quid facere velit, & facturus sit.’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maarten Wisse

The author is an associate professor of Dogmatics and Ecumenics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Privatdozent in Systematic Theology at the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany.