Spinoza intellectual love of god

Was spinoza a deist
Spinoza free speech
Spinoza cherem

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Spinoza’s Political Philosophy

1. Historical Background

To appreciate the significance of Spinoza’s political philosophy, we must situate it in its particular theologico-political context as well as its broader intellectual context.

1.1 Theological and Political Background

Despite being one of the most tolerant countries in early-modern Europe—a sanctuary for free thinkers and members of religious minorities—the United Provinces were riven by religious conflict, as the Dutch sought to establish their identity after gaining independence from Spain. The confessional rifts of the seventeenth century were an important part of context in which Spinoza composed his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [hereafter: TTP].

The early decades of the seventeenth century were marked by a deep religious schism that took on political import. In 1610, forty-four followers of liberal theologian Jacobus Arminius wrote a formal “Remonstrance” that articulated the ways in which they broke with orthodox Calvinism. These Arminians, or Remonstrants, as they came to

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In March, 1668, Adriaan Koerbagh, a Dutch physician in his mid-thirties, hired Johannes Van Eede, a printer in Utrecht, to publish his new book, “A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Shed Light on Matters of Theology and Religion.” But Van Eede, after setting the first half of the manuscript, became uneasy about its highly unorthodox contents. Koerbagh argued that God is not a Trinity, as the Dutch Reformed Church taught, but an infinite and eternal substance that includes everything in existence. In his view, Jesus was just a human being, the Bible is not Holy Writ, and good and evil are merely terms we use for what benefits or harms us. The only reason people believe in the doctrine of Christianity, Koerbagh wrote, is that religious authorities “forbid people to investigate and order them to believe everything they say without examination, and they try to murder (if they do not escape) those who question things and thus arrive at knowledge and truth, as has happened many thousands of times.”

Now it was about to happen to Koerbagh himself. Van Eede, either outraged because of his

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Libertas philosophandi and Freedom of Mind in Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-politicus

Abstract

Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished between “negative” and “positive” liberty, arguing that in practice the two are often in tension with each other. This paper uses Berlin’s distinction to analyze Spinoza’s discussion of freedom in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Libertas philosophandi is Spinoza’s shorthand for freedom of thought and expression – an important element in traditional liberal (“negative”) freedom. The TTP (as its subtitle announces) is devoted in great part to defending the value and importance of permitting such freedom in the state. But as commentators have often noted, Spinoza is reluctant to extend this liberty to the clerics of his day. I argue that this is best understood by reference to a more “positive” conception of freedom that also appears (in less conspicuous passages) in the TTP. This more positive conception, familiar from the Ethics, explains and justifies the liberty-limiting restrictions placed on religious agents and institutions.