In a contest between the principles of modern democracy and doctrines of faith, democracy and the rule of secular law must always win. And that is the solution to the problem with which all of the great faiths that survive in freedom have made their peace.
But that is exactly the assumption that Dr Williams was challenging because, I presume, it seemed to him that it relegated religion to a private sphere - a matter of personal taste or preference - which somehow trivialised it.
What Dr Williams presented was a clear-cut distinction between what he called “a universal Enlightenment system” with its concept of “one law for everybody” and what he described as “plural jurisdiction” in which different communities within one country are permitted to follow their own codes of justice.
He was, in effect, casting doubt on the most fundamental premise of modern political life: that freedom and equality under a universal rule of law is the most advanced and just system of government in which human beings may live.