Theological-Political Treatise

Spinoza presents a critique of biblical religion that culminates in a civil religion, which leaves ultimate sovereignty to the state in all matters of religious belief while presenting the general guidelines for acceptable theological views. For the most part, Spinoza’s account emphasizes freedom and toleration—with one notable exception, his critique of miracles. Spinoza insists on the complete rejection of miracles along with the consequences of such a rejection, including the belief in providence and transcendence. Scholars have struggled to explain why Spinoza wishes to demolish the belief in miracles, and more generally, how his critique contributes to his overall political project. Frankel’s purpose in chapter 5 is to explain Spinoza’s critique of miracles in light of his political project. As Frankel shows, Spinoza hopes to replace older superstitions with newer ones, including the belief in progress.

To contrast the spiritual life one can hope to achieve with Christianity, with a Humanitarian reference point that it is directly symmetrical with human experience, with the quality of life we live was new in Dante's time. While not radical, or overly revolutionary even in literary terms, what Dante sought to examine, and in some sense prove is that human experience, that encompasses virtue, and vice, how we perceive our thoughts, our actions, and our deeds, and the events which lead to credence in terms of faith, and belief can be modified to show the reality of our spiritual growth, and development in the life cycle of human emotion. This article shows that Dante was not chauvinistic or homophobic. In fact it is the qualities that one can derive as universal based on human experiences that make the Divine Comedy the commentary on religious view point that it is. We discover that Dante did not place the love of Christ above the experience of human love, attachment, attraction and commitment. That fulfillment of ones life's purpose is not seen as a beatitude, but drawn from the uncanny, and wide ranging scope of human emotion as it relates to existence. While sin is accounted for in comparison to his reaching the fulfillment of his passion. We will see that Dante is not making that many many theoretical points, but only drawing from human existence, and life's universal qualities. A beautiful and lyrical account about how faith, and devotion is the universal good that spiritual beliefs can only promise. Dante brings out the divine semblance that human love is powerful, and worthy of recognition as all of our spiritual claims and pursuits, that it will, as it does naturally, surpass our reason to seek Gods will for us while ascending in this life, and the after life.

Jakob Thomasius was a well-known professor who in 1670 chose to
address a new anonymous text in a faculty lecture. The text was
Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise (TTP). Five years earlier,
Thomasius had attacked libertine philosophers in two other faculty
lectures, and now explicitly links those lectures with this critique of
the TTP. This article examines the argumentative strategy and structure
of Thomasius’ 1670 lecture, in the light of those 1665 lectures, to
see what it was that upset the Leipzig professor. Thomasius’ text is a
rarity in that it aims to critique the TTP primarily on political grounds,
not religious, but this sees Thomasius’ fear of naturalism assume
strongly political tones of fear of faction. This article assesses
Thomasius’ version of moderate censorship, the link he draws
between Hobbes and innovation, his debt to Comenius, and the
coherence of his defence of moderate Lutheranism. This article also
provides a translation of Thomasius’ heretofore untranslated text.

This paper highlights the presence in Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise of a strong tension between two different configurations of the relationship between mind and body, intellect and imagination, ethics and politics. In a first configuration − closer to that of Spinoza’s early writings − man can enter the sphere of true knowledge, true virtue, true freedom and happiness only through a radical break with the domain of corporeality, of affectivity and political power. But alongside this first configuration emerges a second one − closer to that gained in the Ethics − in which the opposition between the two polarities is overcome in favour of a more complex articulation. From this point of view, the body no longer appears as the clay affected by the machinery of rituals, but as a subject of rights and resistance. Salvation is no longer a liberation of the mind from the body, but a liberation of both the body and mind.

Keywords: body, imagination, reason, virtue, politics

Resumen: El siguiente trabajo busca sacar a la luz cuál es la noción de religión que vertebra la obra de Spinoza, para así encontrar su función dentro de la sociedad y en relación con el Estado. Para ello se analiza pormenorizadamente el Tratado teológico-político, desde el análisis histórico de la Biblia hasta su in-terpretación de la relación entre Estado y religión, y se usan otros textos como soporte, principalmente la Ética.
Abstract: This work seeks to bring to light the notion of religion that underpins Spinoza's work in order to determine its role within society and its connections to the State. To do so, the Treatise on Theology and Politics is analyzed in depth, from the historical analysis of the Bible to the interpretation of the relationship between State and religion; other texts, mainly Ethics, are used to support this analysis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=EhbKk0qjVZQ&feature=emb_logo

In this presentation, I first look into the problem of the apparent contradiction between Spinoza's proposal of state-authoritarian religious policy in TTP 19 and his liberal conviction of religious freedom and tolerance in TTP 20 and read this as a product of his republican political strategies: 1. Weakening the power of clerical leaders, top-down and bottom-up at the same time. 2. Making/educating democratic citizens through religious institutions, practices of love (tolerance/solidarity) and obedience (loyalty), and everyone's open and free reading of the Bible. Spinoza coined doctrines of the universal faith (fides universalis, TTP 14) as a part of this political strategy. However, in TTP, he was silent about the concrete form of religious institutions based on the doctrines. It is TP where he mentions such matters in relation to the three different constitutional forms. He designs for the aristocratic constitution a religious system consist of a single state church of patricians and statesmen based on universal faith and small sects of the ruled (TP 8:46), whereas for the monarchy, the framework of universal religion or state church is disregarded (TP 6:4). Unfortunately, we cannot find what Spinoza concretely drafted as the multitude's religious life in a democratic state because the TP is not complete. However, we can see two general principles in both cases and in TTP for deducing the democratic one: 1. There needs to be a common religious fundament, especially in a state where the political sovereignty is not in the hands of a single individual but of the plural subjects because the religious diversity among the rulers has the potential for conflict. 2. The multitude's freedom of belief cannot be abolished entirely in any form of Government because the extent of its diversity and the magnitude of its power make that an impossible task. Democracy is a political constitution in which a multitude both rules and is ruled. Therefore, the common religious fundamental in Democracy does not mean an established institution such as a state church, but rather a civic movement that should continuously make up common practices in the multi-confessional society.

Throughout the Theological-Political Treatise Spinoza brings to the surface several subjects that are interconnected and permeate the work, making the TPT a complete and coherent whole. We can group all these sparse subjects into three major axes of analysis, and within each major axis there are three own internal sub-themes. The first great axis is an antagonistic relation between theology and philosophy. In this first group we have six sub-themes that Spinoza presents throughout the work approaching them in an antagonistic way: 1) allegorical method / historical method; 2) imagination / intellection; 3) obedience / truth. The second major axis is the relationship, also antagonistic, between Judaism and Christianity. In this second group the six antithetical subtopics that go through the work are: 1) prophets / apostles; 2) letter / spirit; 3) Moses lawgiver / Master Christ. The third and last great axis is the axis of the political sphere, in which Spinoza addresses, more specifically between chapters XVI and XX of the TPT, the idiosyncratic relation, ma non troppo, between natural law and human law. In this third group the six antinomic sub-themes are: 1) natural law / civil law; 2) individual / State; 3) individual power / collective power. By putting these nine sub-themes into their three themes in graphic form. Thus we have: The themes of the first two axes are scattered and scrambled in the first fifteen chapters of the TPT, whereas the themes of the third axis are more cohesive grouped in the last five chapters of the TPT. What we do here is to organize and bring together this multiplicity of themes within three broad general themes. Our task now will be to lecture on each of these three major axes with a view to an overview of this important political work.