In the latest issue of Logos, Ze’ev Levy looks at contemporary issues of religious tolerance and persecution through the lens of Enlightenment philosophers Baruch Spinoza and Moses Mendelssohn:
Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise and Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem share three common issues: 1. a philosophical foundation of freedom of thought and expression; 2. a rationalist conception of the relations between state and religion; 3. an exposition of the religious commandments of the Pentateuch (the Torah) as the political legislation of the ancient Jewish State. However, a more thorough analysis and comparison of their conceptions reveal some striking differences of much relevance to modern deliberations on these issues. Although Spinoza was one of the first modern thinkers to advocate separation of theology and philosophy and exhorted freedom of thought (libertas philosophandi), he did not recommend a clear-cut division between state and religion. He was concerned with preventing the influence of the religious establishment (the Calvinist preachers in Holland of his time) on the affairs of the state, but not the other way round. He aspired to safeguard the independence of the political authorities but not of the religious institutions. There was no symmetry in his approach. He limited religion to the sphere of public education towards obedience; it ought on no account interfere in matters of state. Public exercise of religious worship is subject to the regulations of the state.
The right over matters spiritual lies wholly with the sovereign, and the outward forms of religion should be in accordance with public peace.
Religious practice, unlike philosophical thought, is subordinated to the political authority. The vulnerable point in that argument obviously consists in that the citizens should be completely free to think and believe, but this freedom of thought does not necessarily entail their right to act freely in line with their convictions. Spinoza was aware of the difficulties of this argument, namely that the precise borderline between speech and acting is not always easy to draw.
Read the entire essay here.