Philosophy and Theology, Reason and Revelation: the Ethics and the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

This chapter follows some themes in Spinoza’s complex dialogue between reason and revelation. When we examine what Spinoza thinks revelation teaches, it quickly turns out that there is an apparent inconsistency between revelation, that’s to say theology, and philosophy. What revelation teaches, Spinoza argues, is obedience to God and his laws. But to be obedient, it will turn out, we must conceive of God as a law-giver who enforces the laws that he frames, a conception of God radically at odds with the God that reason shows us in the Ethics. If the philosopher’s conception of God is right, then we must reject the theologian’s conception of God. But if the theologian is right, then we must reject the conception of God that reason demands. In this chapter, the author explores a way of resolving this conflict by appeal to the imagination that supports obedience without a formal conflict with the philosopher’s conception of God.