The genealogy is pretty clear: Pietist-leaning Collegiants, with affinities to the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, influence the theological and political view of Spinoza, leading him to write a treatise where he defends two central Anabaptist/Pietist clams: a) he attacks the tyranny of the letter and b) he argues for a liberal political system in which everyone is free to hold whatever theological opinions he wishes.
Spinoza’s Tractatus is one of the earliest treatises on liberal polity, preceding Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration by several decades. It is part of the invention of the liberal state, and it arises from Anabaptist/Pietist conceptions of piety and polity.
It is ironic, then, that some of the most vocal of today’s theological critics of liberalism work in an Anabaptist/Pietist framework.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Moral Certitude and the Iran War
The current military engagement with Iran calls renewed attention to just war theory in the Catholic tradition.…
The Slow Death of England: New and Notable Books
The fate of England is much in the news as popular resistance to mass immigration grows, limits…
Ethics of Rhetoric in Times of War
What we say matters. And the way we say it matters. This is especially true in times…
