BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Introduction
propagate their views among contemporaries freely both verbally and in
writing. But still more he did so in the hope, and even expectation, of
helping by this means to build a freer and more stable society.
His strategy for establishing and reinforcing toleration and freedom of
thought, as he himself explains in his preface, relies in the ¢rst place on
exposing what he judges to be the basic causes of theological prejudice,
confessional rivalry, intolerance, and intellectual censorship as they plagued
theEurope (and America) of his time. He sought to show that conventional ^
and o⁄cially approved ^ religious teaching and dogmas are based mostly on
mistaken notions, indeed profound misconceptions about the character of
Scripture itself. In this way, he attempted to expose what he saw as a near
universal and dangerous ignorance about such matters as prophecy,
miracles, piety and the true nature of divine commandments and revelation.
Especially useful for undermining the power of theology and lessening
respect for theologically based structures of authority and tradition, he
thought, was his method of demonstrating that ‘prophecy’ is not divine
inspiration in the way that most people then believed, and is not the work of
divine wisdom in action, but is rather a consequence of certain individuals
being endowed with a particularly powerful ‘imagination’.
The Theological-Political Treatise o¡ers a comprehensive theory of what
religion is and how ecclesiastical authority and theological concepts exercise
their power over men while, at the same time, providing a new method of
Bible exegesis. But Spinoza’s challenge in this anonymously published book
was not only to contemporary views about Scripture, faith, piety, priestly
authority and text criticism. In the second place, but no less importantly, he
also strove to reinforce individual liberty and freedom of expression by
introducing, or rather further systematizing, a new type of political theory
(albeit one strongly in£uenced by Machiavelli and Hobbes). This was a
distinctively urban, egalitarian and commercial type of republicanismwhich
Spinoza mobilized as avehicle for challenging then accepted ideas about the
nature of society and what the state is for.
To Spinoza, a thinker who grew up in the closing stages of theThirtyYears
War ^ a ruthless andvastly destructive struggle between the European states
only ostensibly about religion ^ changing prevailing ideas about politics and
statecraft seemed no less essential than combating religious prejudice,
intolerance and authoritarianism.What he regarded as fundamentally false
notions aboutgovernment,public policy,education and moralityappearedto
himto threaten anddamage notonlythe lives of individuals butthe alsofabric
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