Kenneth Novis (St Hugh’s College): 'Spinoza and the Politics of Atheism'
Abstract: The question of how to appropriately treat atheists is a recurring theme in early modern political philosophy. Contemporary secular approaches to religious toleration often stress the separability of private belief and public action. Due to the systematic relation between beliefs and actions for Spinoza, no such option is available to him. Although this relation between beliefs and actions explains Spinoza’s significant hostility to atheism, in this paper I consider how it also opens a vista within his philosophy to a positive political treatment of atheism. For this purpose, I focus on the central chapters of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, and especially recent research on the ‘dogmas of universal faith’ from chapter 14. The purpose of these dogmas is to provide a minimal credo, general public acceptance of which results in civic harmony. Spinoza lists seven dogmas, all of which relate to the social necessity of belief in a providential and personal deity. The civic harmony that these dogmas produce results from how they inculcate true faith in a population, which Spinoza simply defines as love of one’s neighbour. I argue that there is a contingent relation between the dogmas and true faith. It is therefore conceivable that alternative dogmas sensitive to the psychological and conative constitution of the public could achieve the same effect. Furthermore, these alternative dogmas could result in a well-regulated society, the majority of whose members are, in fact, atheists. And, unlike minimal theories of religious toleration, Spinoza’s approach treats atheism in a positive political manner by accepting his core premise that an agent’s beliefs always eventually appear in their practice.
