Saturday, April 7, 2012

The Truth About Tolerance

“What then is the truth about tolerance? The meaning of this virtue is not tolerating per se, but tolerating what ought to be tolerated. Practicing it means putting up with just those bad things that, for the sake of some greater good or of moral law, we ought to put up with. We are not practicing the virtue when fail to put up with bad things that we ought to put up with, such as the expression of false opinions in debate; nor are we practicing it when do put up with bad things that we ought not to put up with, such as rape. But making such distinctions requires knowing the truth about goods, bads, greater goods, and moral law. There is nothing neutral about that. It requires that we avoid not strong convictions, but false convictions; it requires not refusing to act, but acting. As Abraham Kuyper, J.B. Phillips, and C.S. Lewis have said in nearly identical words, ‘There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.’”
--J. Budziszewski, "The Revenge of Conscience" 

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