An Ethical Interpretation Of Spinoza's Theory Of Religious Freedom

The current scholarship of Spinoza is unsatisfactory in dealing with Spinoza's interpretation of religion and politics.Although they noticed that Spinoza's philosophy of politics had a tendency of reductionism,they still fall into the problem of “liberal republicanism” or indulge in the mysticism of “politics reducted to religion”or the radicalism of “religion reducted to politics”.Therefore,it is necessary to return to Spinoza's text and the situation of the times to dialectically handle the relationship between religion and politics,and demonstrate both the homogeneity and heterogeneity of religion and politics under a new pattern.In the face of this theoretical task,under the premise of agreeing with the research pattern of “universal ethics” which is generally accepted by the current academia,it is necessary to use the concepts,system and theoretical interests of ethics analizing and demonstrating the key concepts of Spinoza's interpretation of religion and politics respectively.Among them,the three concepts of religion,freedom and state are the main categories to be clarified in this paper;the relationship between religion and freedom,the relationship between state and freedom,and the relationship between religious freedom and national freedom in the ethical dimension are the focuses of this paper.The inevitability,necessity,connotation,scope,realistic interests and limits of religious freedom are the key category systems to be constructed in this paper.Concretely speaking,the main body of this paper will contain three chapters,respectively discussing the reflection on Spinoza's view of religion and freedom;the reflection on Spinoza's view of state and its relationship with religious freedom;analysis of the causes and theoretical significances of changing from political philosophy to ethics.In the clues of interpretation,the logical breaks in the previous discussions are taken as the basic problem consciousness.Reasonable and relatively academically accepted research conclusions are drawed as basis of going back to the text of “Ethics”,“Theological-Political treatise” and “Political treatise”,and it is also accompanied by the “Letters” that reflect the world of life.The textual interpretation method is used to reconstruct the “religious freedom theory” and “limited religion theory” in “universal ethics”.In the conclusion,this thesis attempts to demonstrate that Spinoza's view of religious freedom must be a limited liberalism,or that religious finiteness is the essential element of the theory of religious freedom.Before proving the above conclusions,the main category of “religion” that must be clarified means:philosophy,true religion,superstition,and traditional revelatory religion.Philosophy has a eternal parallel relationship with true religion.This is the biggest theoretical feature of Spinoza's “new religion” theory.“Freedom” means “actively obeying the eternal necessity of God”.Freedom and necessity are relatively related concepts.Freedom is more than just an understanding of God's eternal necessity.The category of “state” is not only legal and political,but also ethical.State is not only the subject which is “instructed by one mind”,but also the subject of guaranteeing individual freedom.Coordinating individual freedom and collective freedom is the ethical essence of the state.On the basis of clarifying the three main concepts of religion,freedom and state,the relationships between the concepts of religion and freedom,state and freedom,freedom of religion and freedom of state are attempted to be analyzed.Among them,the connotation of religious freedom is freedom of thought and moral autonomy,and the connotation of state freedom is peace and enlightenment.Religious freedom has a parallel relationship with national freedom: on the one hand,they do not interfere with each other,on the other hand,they are relatively consistent and mutually acceptable.In short,only by returning to Spinoza's original intention of reconstructing philosophy into universal ethics can the “parallelism” of religion and politics break through the problem of “liberal republicanism”.