What would God do? Solving the Paradox of Tolerance and why “evil” or “bad things” happen in the world.

“Those that are in conflict will be separated.” – Unknown source

There’s a weird trick when dealing with various spiritual or philosophical questions – just ask: what would God do?

It’s a very useful trick because it immediately allows you to throw away bad assumptions and put things into the right perspective.

Take for example the so-called “Paradox of Tolerance”. Basically it’s the idea that “if a tolerant society allows intolerant ideologies to grow unchecked, those intolerant forces may eventually suppress tolerance itself” (GPT4o)

To most people, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable concern. So the popular solution in modern “tolerant” societies is to become intolerant (of intolerance) so that society can ensure it is tolerant. (Now this is a strange paradox!)

But if you switch perspective from being a human being victimized by evil intolerant forces, to that of divine nature, you’ll see something totally different. God not only tolerates, but also loves. And thus through its creations, whether we call it “good” or “evil”, all things exist and are treated the same. This is why we have “evil” in the world – God tolerates and loves it as much as it loves “good”. There is no paradox – point to anything that exists or is conceivable to exist, and God loves it since it is its creation.

The paradox returns only when we return to the human perspective. Where is the difference? First, consider the scenario where the intolerant suppresses tolerance in society. This of course does not hinder your personal freedom to tolerate this intolerant society – but those who self-proclaim to be tolerant do not tolerate this. Now, which came first, the intolerant people, or the stance that intolerance cannot be tolerated? From the story telling perspective it is the former, but in fact it is the latter that was planted first into the hearts of the self-proclaimed tolerant.

It is a logical fallacy to think that one cannot be tolerant of the intolerant. It might seem to be pointless, but it is not something illogical or logically impossible. Once this is accepted, the paradox also goes away. You have people who proclaim to be tolerant, but discreetly hold an exception to that rule. The intolerant people show up, trigger that exception, and now there’s a “paradox” because the self-proclaimed tolerant can’t fully explain why they are so intolerant of the intolerant.

Now, people may object that, if the intolerant gain power, bad things will happen. That may be the case, but that just also shows that tolerance is not really without exceptions. It simply implies that those who proclaim tolerance will be intolerant to things that lead to bad outcomes. (Btw, God is not intolerant of bad outcomes…)

I have put “evil” and “bad things” in quotes because there is no objective way to define these concepts that is orthogonal to subjective value systems. Those that are truly tolerant realize that these concepts are never absolute.