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ABSTRACT
There is a direct relationship between epistemology and one's attitude toward those with whom one disagrees. Those who think that the truth is difficult to ascertain can be expected, other things equal, to tend to tolerate (in the sense of sympathizing with) those with whom they disagree, as the blameless victims of an opaque reality. Those who think that the truth is easy to ascertain can be expected, other things equal, to tend to be intolerant (in the sense of being unsympathetic) toward those with whom they disagree, who perversely refuse to acknowledge what should be clear to any well-intentioned inquirer. However, these tendencies toward tolerant or intolerant attitudes can be offset by other factors; and they do not, in any case, necessarily dictate whether one will favor tolerant or intolerant policies regarding those toward whom one feels tolerant or intolerant. The complex relationship between epistemology, tolerant or intolerant attitudes, and tolerant or intolerant policies is evident in the thought of prominent early-modern Protestant theologians who, under the pressure of rampant and violent religious disagreement, theorized tolerance.
Notes
1 In the eleventh century, Bishop Wazo of Liège had argued for toleration on skeptical grounds, by interpreting the parable of the tares to mean that persecutors may not know who is really a heretic (a tare), and might thus mistakenly harm true Christians (the wheat) (Moore 1975, 22-24). In the fourteenth century, Boccaccio’s Decameron (third story of the first day) used a different parable—a father who, before he dies, gives each of his three children a ring, only one of which is genuine—to convey a message of toleration in light of human uncertainty about which of the three Abrahamic religions is true. Both of these pleas for toleration on pessimistic epistemological grounds are brief—Bishop Wazo’s argument takes place in a two-page letter to the Bishop of Châlon (reproduced in Moore 1975), and Bocaccio’s story runs to less than three pages—and are not systematic.
2 Strictly speaking, Servetus was killed for being a false prophet, not a heretic, since the death penalty for heresy had been revoked in Geneva roughly twenty years earlier (Hunt Citation1933, 217). His death sentence was decided by the Geneva Council, not by Calvin himself (although almost certainly with his endorsement) (ibid.).
3 Nevertheless, Castellio often relied on select Scriptural passages to prove his point.
4 See Titus 3:10.
5 Ernst Troeltsch (Citation1931, 763), in contrast, concludes that Castellio’s toleration was “not the toleration of skepticism or of opportunism, but the tolerant spirit of mysticism, which regards every kind of dogmatic formulation as merely approximate knowledge.”
6 A view he may have borrowed from Franck.
7 “Nam et natura homini rationem indidit, qua verum a falso, bonum a malo, iustum ab inuisto discernat, et doctrina, ratione duce, naturam confirmat docetque vivendum esse secundum naturam et, hoc qui faciunt, iustos, qui contra, iniustos pronunciat.”
8 Castellio saw ratio (reason) as identical with sermo (speech), for ratio is eternal and internal speech (sermo or oratio), and both refer to the Greek logos (Castellio [Citation1563] Citation1981, 66). Thus, for example, in his Latin translation of the New Testament, Castellio translated logos not as verbum (as Jerome had done) but sermo (Castellio [Citation1551] Citation1697, Novi foederis, 139). Guggisberg Citation2003, 225-26, provides a brief overview of several competing views of what Castellio means by “reason,” without adjudicating among them. Elisabeth Feist Hersch (Citation1981, 5-6) suggests that ratio should be translated not as “reason” but “critical intellect.”
9 “Ne quidem cogitari potest ullum aliud instrumentum ulla de re iudicandi homini a natura datum quam sensus et intellectus, adeo, ut, si haec homini sustuleris, omne omni de re iudicium sustuleris.”
10 Rummel Citation2000, ch. 3, provides an account of the negative reception of the ars dubitandi in the sixteenth century.
11 Castellio’s work may have affected the thinking of later figures, such as Dirck Coornhert, and it was particularly influential in the 1604 dispute between Jacob Arminius and Franciscus Gomarus in the United Provinces, and during the Remonstrant and Counter-Remonstrant controversy from around 1610 to 1620 (Guggisberg Citation2003, 242-43).
12 However, Troeltsch (Citation1931, 762) asserts (without much argumentation) that Castellio was “never an Erasmian.”
13 While Rummel (Citation2000, 56) suggests that Erasmus’s skepticism was not the Ciceronian one of seeking probability rather than certainty, Erasmus often uses the criterion of probability rather than certainty (e.g., Erasmus [Citation1524] Citation1961, 16, 30, 76, 94; [Citation1526] 1999, 210-11, 223).
14 While Paradoxa was written in German, it begins by listing five statements in both Latin and German and presents each paradox in both tongues. Without modernizing the German, the three I quoted are: “Scriptura liber septem signaculis clausus, ob signatumque aenigma/Die Schrifft ist ein verschlossen Büch mit siben sigil”; “Litera Scripturae Antichristi gladius, occidit Christum/Der Büchstab der Schrifft des Antichrists schwert tödt Christum”; and “Scriptura sine luce, vita & interprete spiritus, obscura lucerna & occidens litera/Die Schrifft ist on das liecht, leben und außlegung des gaists ein todter Büchstab und finstere latern.”
15 “Haereses & sectae ex secta litera scripturae/Retzerey unnd Secten auß dem Büchstaben der Schrifft.”
16 This was a departure from Erasmus, who thought that the seemingly immoral parts of the Bible have to be read metaphorically; it is more in line with a Spiritualist view of the Bible. Perhaps by 1544 Castellio had encountered writings by the Spiritualists, and was influenced by their looser attitude towards Scripture. Ozment (Citation1973, 198-99) contends that Jean Bauhin and David Joris introduced Castellio to mystical writings when Castellio was in Basle, which means some time after 1544. This, however, does not preclude Castellio from having encountered some of the Spiritualist writings earlier. Franck, for example, who died in 1543, published most of his work in the 1530s.
17 Calvin ([Citation1559] Citation1975, 347) also did not see consensus as a guarantee of truth, as “the custom of the city or the agreement of tradition is too weak and frail a bond of piety.” It is not clear, however, whether he thought that the consensus only of custom or tradition is insufficient, such that other types of consensus, achieved by reason or revelation, might indicate a convergence on the truth. He wrote, for example, that “there was no pure and approved religion, founded upon common understanding alone” (ibid.), suggesting that if a religious consensus were founded upon understanding, it might be trustworthy.
18 While Calvin often speaks of the eternal and written law as being “clear” and “manifest,” he means that they are clear and manifest in themselves, i.e., to God, not to human beings.