A Plea for Religious Tolerance
KONITZ, MILTON R.
WRITERS and WRITING A Plea for Religious Tolerance Christianity Among the Religions of the World. By Arnold Toynbee. Scribner. 116 pp. $2.75. Reviewed by Milton R. Konvitz Professor of law and...
...and even among Protestants the ecumenical movement is far removed from anything that could be called a grass-roots base...
...Who can wait for such a development...
...While the ultimate inspiration of the Biblical religions is the belief that each individual soul has a supreme value for God, for Communism and Nationalism the test of a man's value is the use that Leviathan can make of him...
...For the problem of the competition between God and Leviathan remains...
...Toynbee's plea for religious toleration and for a belief in religious pluralism and multiple revelation is in the tradition of Locke, Jefferson and Madison...
...But there is no "dialogue," there is no mutual love or understanding...
...but at the same time one must affirm that religious diversity is divinely, as well as socially, justified: so that one must move toward and away from union at one and the same time...
...As long as the lion and the lamb cannot lie down together in peace, it is wise-or foxy-to pretend that one has a cold and cannot smell...
...I should say," Toynbee states, "that one can be convinced of the essential truth and rightness and value of what one believes to be the fundamental points in one's own religion-and can believe that these tenets have been received by one as a revelation from God-and at the same time not believe that I, my church, my people, have the sole and unique revelation...
...In his Table Talk, John Selden tells the following fable: The lion called the lamb to tell if his breath had a smell...
...His "crucial point," says Toynbee, is "that we can have conviction without fanaticism, we can have belief and action without arrogance or self-oenteredness or pride...
...There is institutional jealousy, competition and suspicion among the various denominations and sects...
...It is possible for us, he says, "while holding that our own convictions are true and right, to recognize that, in some measure, all the higher religions are also revelations of what is true and right...
...I believe that Toynbee essentially believes this...
...Reviewed by Milton R. Konvitz Professor of law and of industrial and labor relations, Cornell University THIS BOOK, although written by a historian and profoundly informed by historical insights, is a tract for the times...
...In each of them there is an unresolved tension between love that reaches out universally (because God's love is universal) and a fanaticism that shuts out all outsiders...
...Perhaps what one needs to think is best expressed in a polarity of propositions: Religions must seek to understand and respect one another...
...This is deplorable...
...At last he called the fox and asked him...
...This is the peace of the churches today...
...It is a plea to the living higher religions-Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism-to forget their traditional rivalries and enmities and to face one another as understanding friends...
...It is, of course, an essential aspect of civil liberties...
...Yet perhaps Madison was right in thinking that religious diversity, precisely because it breeds mutual distrust, is itself a guarantee of liberty...
...The fox said he had a cold and could not smell...
...But at the same time their God is a jealous God, and so it has come about that each religion claims God and God's love only for itself...
...at least there are no religious wars...
...They should do this, Arnold Toynbee contends, because they face two fearful rivals...
...It is coexistence of a sort...
...While the religions have a common ground among them, there is no common ground between them and Leviathan...
...but his statement on behalf of a united front of religions to meet the challenge of Communism and Nationalism as competing faiths falls short of carrying conviction...
...Another man's religion is always suspected of being a lion who is looking for heads to bite off...
...each presents some facet of God's truth...
...One should be grateful for Toynbee's eloquent statement...
...But one ends the book with the feeling that Toynbee has claimed more than his proofs will allow...
...Coexistence among the religions may be assured, yet the problem of coexistence between the Communist and the non-Communist world still will remain the basic challenge for mankind...
...If this challenge is to be met in the foreseeable future, it is not possible to set as a condition precedent for our success the love of Christianity for Islam and the love of Islam for Christianity (to name only two religions...
...These religions see God as love...
...The destruction of fanaticism need not mean, says Toynbee, a syncretism of all religions...
...The bridge between religions must separate as well as connect...
...In order to face one another as friends and allies, the Biblical religions must get rid of their fanaticism...
...They also come from God and...
...Even if the higher religions should learn to live with and respect one another, will it follow that Communism and Nationalism will be defeated and destroyed...
...Who can even wait for the time when Christians will love one another...
...Communism and Nationalism, both of which worship collective human power instead of God...
...He called the wolf and asked him, and the wolf said no, and the lion bit off his head for being a flatterer...
...If they are not to be destroyed by Leviathan, Toynbee contends, they must destroy the fanaticism that is within them...
...Roman Catholics and Protestants are not moving toward one another but further apart...
...The lamb said yes, and the lion bit off her head for being a fool...
Vol. 41 • November 1958 • No. 63
