In my opinion, though here I go beyond anything I find explicitly stated in his text,
Bayle's best strategy at this point would be to conduct the argument without making any
dubious appeals to the Cartesian natural light. The epistemic credentials of two
conflicting claims are to be assessed and then compared. One is a moral principle to the
effect that intolerant behavior of a certain kind is wrong; the other is a conflicting
religious claim. The epistemic principle called on to adjudicate the conflict is that, when
two conflicting claims differ in epistemic status, the claim with the lower status is to be
rejected. In the case of special interest to Bayle, the moral principle is that using
compulsion to produce the inner acts essential to religion is wrong. This is an intuitively
plausible principle, even if, because of the possibility of a few divinely ordained
exceptions, it falls short of being evident by the natural light. So the epistemic status of
the moral principle is fairly high. The conflicting religious claim is that employing
compulsion to produce those inner acts is obligatory because Jesus commanded it.
Considerations Bayle dwells on in the Philosophical Commentary can be mobilized in
assessing the epistemic status of the religious claim. For instance, after arguing that Luke
14:23 should be interpreted in the light of its context, Bayle contends that reading this
verse in a way that supports forced conversion “is contrary to the whole tenor and general
spirit of the Gospel” (1686/1987, 39). Considerations of this sort show that the epistemic
status of the religious claim is lower than that of the moral principle. The religious claim
is, therefore, to be rejected. The Baylean strategy succeeds in this particular case.
Of course, this successful application of my Baylean strategy eliminates only one ground
for the use of compulsion by the religiously intolerant. Many successful applications
would be needed to eliminate all the grounds of all forms of religious intolerance. And it
cannot be guaranteed in advance that enough appli
end p.404
cations will succeed to justify the extensive regime of religious toleration favored by
contemporary liberals. Perhaps the strategy will work well enough against the inquisitors
who would like to kill, torture, or imprison heretics. But consider exile, which Bayle cites
as a form of compulsion, or, more generally, exclusion from a community. Does the
principle that it is morally wrong to exclude people from a political community because
of their religious faith have a very high epistemic status? I doubt it. Is it highly plausible
that the magistrates of Calvin's Geneva would have done wrong if they had expelled
Catholics from the city under conditions in which the exiles were compensated for
forfeited property? Is it highly plausible that the elders of a contemporary Amish farming
community would do wrong if they excluded those of other faiths from their community?
I tend to think not. Living in a religiously homogeneous community can realize some
very important values. It does not seem highly plausible to me that it is always wrong to
endeavor to defend or preserve such values by means such as exclusion.
A serious difficulty becomes urgent if we envisage making use of my Baylean strategy
with principles of moral wrongness that do not have a fairly high epistemic status. As
traditionally conceived, God is omnipotent or, at least, very powerful. It would thus seem
to be within God's power to communicate to us through experience a sign that transmits
to the claim that God commands some intolerant behavior, such as excluding heretics
from our community, a fairly high epistemic status. It hence seems possible for