ABSTRACT
In two recent articles,1 the late Philip Quinn offered an argument for tolerance between believers of the major world religions. Behind his argument is the portrayal of a clash between, on the one hand, injunctions in such religions to compel the whole of humanity to accept the religious truth, and on the other, our awareness of moral principles that forbid the visiting of harm and coercion upon others. Quinn aims to show the way out of this tension. A central plank in his method of dealing with the clash between religious demand and moral principle is the assertion that the very problem generating the tension – the diversity of religious belief in the world – provides the resolution. The following quotation introduces his path out of the tension: ‘there is a clear connection between the epistemological problems posed by religious belief and the political problems posed by diversity’.2
