Political Philosophy

Theological-Political Treatise

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Baruch Spinoza

1670

The Theological-Political Treatise (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus) is Spinoza's most politically explosive work and one of the founding texts of the Enlightenment — published anonymously in 1670 because Spinoza knew its contents would provoke condemnation from every religious authority in Europe. The work advances two revolutionary arguments in tandem: a philosophical critique of Scripture and a defence of freedom of thought in the republic. In the first part, Spinoza subjects the Bible to systematic historical and literary analysis, arguing that prophecy is a product of imagination not intellect, that miracles are incompatible with the necessity of natural law, that the books of Moses were not written by Moses, and that Scripture's authority is practical and moral — teaching obedience and charity — rather than metaphysical or historical. This inaugurates modern biblical criticism and the secular academic study of religion. In the second part, Spinoza argues that the original social contract transferred to the sovereign only the right to external action, not the right to think; that freedom of thought and expression is not merely tolerable but necessary for the flourishing of the republic and the advancement of philosophy; and that theology must be kept strictly separate from philosophy, which alone can follow reason wherever it leads. The Treatise was immediately banned, widely read, and deeply influential — on Locke, on Bayle, on the French philosophes, and on every subsequent liberal argument for the separation of church and state.