Imagine you’re in a heated discussion with someone whose views are radically different from your own. You feel the urge to push back, to correct, perhaps even to condemn. But then something stops you: tolerance is not weakness — it’s a deliberate choice. François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, understood this better than most. His writings on tolerance drew from centuries of philosophical tradition. Which thinkers shaped his ideas? And how can their insights still guide us today?
The Stoic Foundation: Seneca and Marcus Aurelius
Voltaire was an avid reader of the Roman Stoics. Seneca, the philosopher and statesman, taught that anger and intolerance spring from flawed judgments about reality. When someone insults or contradicts you, it is not the other person who wounds you — it is your own interpretation of their words. This insight echoes powerfully through Voltaire’s case for tolerance: once we accept that people think differently because of their upbringing, culture, and experiences, the grounds for condemnation simply dissolve.
Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor, took the idea even further. In his Meditations, he wrote that we should regard even our opponents as fellow human beings who act according to their own logic. Voltaire translated this into a practical stance: fight ideas with arguments, never with violence or exclusion. The Stoic discipline of mastering one’s emotions thus forms the backbone of tolerance as an active virtue — not something you fall into passively, but something you practice with intention.
Montaigne’s Skepticism: Questioning What We Think We Know
Michel de Montaigne, the sixteenth-century French essayist, exercised an enormous influence on Voltaire. Montaigne’s famous question — Que sais-je? (What do I know?) — undermined every form of dogmatism at its root. If we cannot even be certain of our own knowledge, by what right do we condemn the beliefs of others? This skeptical posture made Montaigne a forerunner of the religious tolerance that Voltaire would later champion so passionately.
Montaigne’s essays on cannibals and on customs revealed how arbitrary our norms truly are. What we consider barbaric may be perfectly normal elsewhere. Voltaire adopted this sense of relativity and applied it to the religious conflicts tearing apart his own era. The Protestants and Catholics who persecuted one another in eighteenth-century France differed far less than they imagined. The realization that our certainties are relative makes tolerance not merely possible but essential.
John Locke and Natural Rights
The English philosopher John Locke published his Letter Concerning Toleration in 1689 — a text that Voltaire studied closely during his years of exile in England. Locke argued that the state has no authority over the conscience of its citizens. Faith is a matter between the individual and God, not between the individual and the government. This argument gave Voltaire a legal and political framework for his advocacy of tolerance.
Tolerance is not the absence of conviction, but the presence of respect for the convictions of others.
Locke’s concept of natural rights — including freedom of conscience — resonated deeply with Voltaire’s own experiences. He had witnessed how the French state persecuted Protestants, how families were torn apart, and how innocents were condemned. Locke offered philosophical rigor for what Voltaire felt intuitively: persecution on the basis of belief is not only cruel but profoundly irrational.
Renaissance Humanism and the Legacy of Erasmus
The humanism of the Renaissance, with Desiderius Erasmus as its foremost representative, placed great emphasis on human dignity and the power of reasoned dialogue. Erasmus criticized the religious fanaticism of his time with sharp satire, but always with the aim of bringing people to their senses. His In Praise of Folly demonstrated how foolish certainties inevitably lead to foolish conflicts.
From Erasmus, Voltaire inherited the conviction that humor and irony are far more effective weapons than the sword. His own satirical works, such as Candide, follow exactly this model. By making readers laugh at dogmatism, Voltaire opened the door to a more tolerant attitude. The humanist ideal of the scholar who rises above partisan conflict is clearly reflected in Voltaire’s self-image as a defender of reason.
Practical Application: Tolerance as a Daily Practice
This rich philosophical heritage is far from dead knowledge. You can put it to work today. The Stoics teach you to examine your first reaction of disapproval before you act on it. Montaigne invites you to question your own certainties. Locke reminds you that your neighbor has just as much right to his convictions as you have to yours. And Erasmus shows that a smile often achieves more than a sermon.
Consider these practices for cultivating tolerance in your daily life: Pause before reacting to a provocative statement. Ask yourself — what if I had grown up in exactly the same circumstances as this person? Seek out conversations with people who think differently, not to convince them but to understand them. Use humor to defuse tension rather than to escalate it. Each of these small acts is a step toward the kind of tolerance Voltaire envisioned.
Tolerance Within Freemasonry
It is no coincidence that Voltaire maintained close ties with Freemasons. The lodge in the eighteenth century was one of the very few places where men of different faiths could meet as brothers on equal footing. The Masonic tradition of leaving religion and politics outside the lodge door is a practical embodiment of the tolerance ideal that Voltaire proclaimed. Within the brotherhood, what matters is not what you believe but how you act.
The philosophers who inspired Voltaire — from Seneca to Locke — would have felt at home in this environment. Their shared legacy is the conviction that people, despite their differences, can work together toward a better world. Tolerance, in this light, is not passive indifference. It is an active choice to give the other person room to be who they are. That is the virtue Voltaire left us, rooted in centuries of philosophical reflection and brought to life in the values Freemasonry continues to uphold.
Voltaire’s plea for tolerance did not emerge from a vacuum. Stoicism taught him emotional mastery. Montaigne gave him the gift of doubt. Locke provided a political and philosophical framework. Erasmus showed him the disarming power of wit. Together, these thinkers built the intellectual foundation on which Voltaire constructed one of the Enlightenment’s most enduring ideals — an ideal that remains as vital today as it was in the eighteenth century, and one that continues to find expression in the Masonic commitment to meeting on the level, regardless of differences in faith or opinion.
Copyright text & image: devrijmetselaar.nl
Texts are based on the ideas and content of the author of devrijmetselaar.nl, reviewed, corrected, and supplemented with the assistance of OpenAI. Images are created based on the ideas of the author of devrijmetselaar.nl using OpenAI/DALL-E.
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