Spinoza on Human and Divine Justice

The volume combines historical scholarship with conceptual analysis focusing on the ways in which theological considerations have figured in natural law theorizing from Plato to Spinoza. Theological considerations have had a pronounced role in Thomistic natural law theorizing but much remains to explore concerning both Aquinas and other key figures in the long and complex history of natural law theorizing. These essays articulate diverse ways in which natural law has been understood and the diverse ways in which theistic claims have been related to claims about the objectivity and rationality of principles of natural law. In addition to exploring Plato and the Stoics, the volume also looks at medieval Jewish thought, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham, and the ways in which Spinoza’s thought includes resonances of earlier views and intimations of later developments. Theses of philosophical theology are often crucial elements of natural law theorizing, with an integral role in accounting for the metaethical status and ethical bindingness of natural law. Questions of the relation between natural law and God, and the relation between natural law and divine command have been answered in a multiplicity of ways. These essays explore those relations during significant historical periods and they also consider views holding that there are objective, universal moral principles while not also including natural law, and why natural law is not part of those views.

Cardozo L. Rev., 2003

This paper explains how Spinoza contributed to turning our conception of the law and the methods of its interpretation upside down. His contribution has been essential and twofold: (1) Spinoza was partly responsible for the destruction of the “legal model of thought” (ratio more juridico), which prevailed until the 16th century (and sometimes later) not only in legal matters but in most areas of scientific knowledge; (2) Spinoza also played a major role in the shaping of modern law, which rests upon the summa divisio between, on one hand, natural law, embedded in natural reason and discovered more geometrico, and, on the other hand, positive law, which expresses the will of the sovereign power and rests upon its sole authority. This division, I will argue, is neither eternal nor self-evident, but an effect of the strategy followed by Spinoza and a few others in their arduous struggle against traditional powers and religious authorities.

2010

Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was published anonymously in 1670 and immediately provoked huge debate. Its main goal was to claim that the freedom of philosophizing can be allowed in a free republic and that it cannot be abolished without also destroying the peace and piety of that republic. Spinoza criticizes the traditional claims of revelation and offers a social contract theory in which he praises democracy as the most natural form of government. This Critical Guide to the Treatise presents new essays by well-known scholars in the field and covers a broad range of topics, including the political theory and the metaphysics of the work, religious toleration, the reception of the text by other early modern philosophers, and the relation of the text to Jewish thought.

If Spinoza’s status as a major philosopher rests, as is generally acknowledged, on the Ethics, where does this leave the Theological-Political Treatise? Published anonymously in 1670, after the drafting of the first three parts of the Ethics between 1662 and 1665 but before the private circulation of the completed manuscript in 1675, its genesis is curiously entangled with that of the later text. How, then, should this interrelation be read? With its unique blend of biblical exegesis, political critique and philosophical enquiry, the TTP is, I argue, not simply a preliminary demolition job on religion’s claim to truth but is itself shaped in important respects by the metaphysical schema elaborated in the Ethics. To demonstrate the interdependence of the two texts the paper will be developed around three key themes. First, the impact of Spinoza’s excommunication on his philosophical development, second, the status of prophecy vis-à-vis divine knowledge, and finally, the relation between the ethical teaching of Scripture and the highest philosophical knowledge. Particular emphasis will be given to the figure of the prophet whose function and level of intellectual understanding is arguably the greatest point of difference between Spinoza and the theologians. The enquiry will be guided by two overriding questions: to what extent does the TTP clear the theological ground, as it were, to make way for the metaphysical radicalism of the Ethics and, conversely, to what extent do the already-formulated propositions of the Ethics provide a theoretical validation of positions adopted in the TTP?

Journal of Religion, 2023

What does Spinoza mean when he uses the term "theocracy" in the TTP? Exactly what kind of political arrangement does Spinoza envision when he designates the original covenant between the Israelites and God at Sinai as theocratic, and what role is God imagined to play in it? Given the clear differences between the political arrangements of the Israelites prior to and following Mosaic rule, moreover, what leads Spinoza to use the same theocratic designator emphatically to describe both? By way of answer to these questions, this essay argues there is both a critical and a positive definition of theocracy which come to light to different degrees in the different manifestations of theocracy in TTP 17. The critical meaning

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2019

Spinoza's moral philosopher represents his most concerted attempt to come to terms with the great philosophical questions of the existence and identity of God, the nature and origin of the human mind concerning God, the origin and nature of emotions, the power of emotions as they restrict freedom of choice. His ethics is derived from his metaphysics and psychology. His belief that everything emanates from a perfect and infinite God made him conclude that evil does not exist. Further, he argues that anything that happens could have happened otherwise since it emanated from the unchangeable laws of nature. The surest part of happiness according to Spinoza is the study of philosophy and meditation. Arising from the foregoing, this discourse views Spinoza's doctrine as running contrary to human nature. For maintaining that everything is fated and determined including human disposition implies that all human actions can, therefore, be said to be amoral. The corollary o f the above is that institutions such as law court, police, prisons, and judiciary, Christianity and Islam are superfluous, irrational and serving no purpose. Consequently, his postulates smack of a moral lacuna.

Otfried Höffe (ed.), Baruch de Spinozas Tractatus theologico-politicus (Berlin: Akademie Verlag (Klassiker Aulegen), 2013

""Chapters 17 and 18 of the TTP constitute a textual unit in which Spinoza submits the case of the ancient Hebrew state to close examination. This is not the work of a historian, at least not in any sense that we, twenty-first century readers, would recognize as such. Many of Spinoza’s claims in these chapters are highly speculative, and seem to be poorly backed by historical evidence. Other claims are broad-brush, ahistorical generalizations: for example, in a marginal note, Spinoza refers to his Jewish contemporaries as if they were identical with the ancient Hebrews. Projections from Spinoza’s own experience of his Jewish and Dutch contemporaries are quite common, and the Erastian lesson that Spinoza attempts to draw from his “history” of the ancient Hebrew state is all too conspicuous. Even Spinoza’s philosophical arguments in these two chapters are not uniformly convincing, as I will attempt to show. Yet in spite of all these faults, the two chapters are a masterpiece of their own kind: a case study of the psychological foundations of politics and religion. The work that comes closest in my mind is Freud’s 1939 Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion. The two works are similar not only in terms of their chronological subject matter – the Hebrews of Moses’s time – but also in their attempt to reconstruct the communal psyche of the Hebrews in order to demonstrate their respective social theories about the foundation of civilization. Needless to say, there are numerous differences between the two works, not the least of which are their distinct aims and the very different political contexts in which they were produced. We will return to this comparison with Freud’s Moses and Monotheism toward the end of the essay, but let me first stage the background for our discussion. Chapter 16 of the TTP begins a new section of the book which primarily deals with the relation between religion and the state. In this chapter Spinoza presents an outline of his political theory and his understanding of key notions such as right, power, the state of nature, the social contract, sovereignty, democracy, and justice. The title of chapter 17 announces its aim and focus: “showing that no one can transfer everything to the Supreme Power, and that this is not necessary; on the Hebrew Republic, as it was during the life of Moses, and after his death, before they elected Kings, and on its excellence; and finally, on the causes why the divine Republic [Respublica divina] could perish, and could hardly survive without rebellions” (III/201). The far less ambitious title of eighteenth chapter states that in it “certain Political doctrines are inferred from the Republic and history of the Hebrews” (III/221). Essentially, the two chapters present a surprising, ironic, and penetrating reading of the story of the divine Hebrew Republic, a reading which highlights both how much and how little was achieved by the use of the fantastic political device of attributing divine sanctification to the state and its sovereign. ""

I argue that in the seven "dogmas of the universal faith," which are introduced in chapter XIV of the 7heological-Political Treatise, Spinoza reinterprets the traditional view of a minimal credo required for salvation. The dogmas are dialectical propositions that are true insofar as they are practically useful. Instead of obtaining salvation for the soul, the dogmas aid in the preservation of the body, particularly through the regulation of religion within the state. I show that reading the dogmas in light of Spinoza's method of interpreting Scripture is crucial to the understanding of their function in religion. In conclusion. I claim that the dogmas do not lead to the abolition of traditional religion, as some have claimed. but rather support the toleration of diverse religious practices.