SPINOZA ON TRUTH, RELIGION, AND SALVATION

According to Spinoza, the implications of the new scientific worldview of his time are diametrically opposed to the fundamental philosophical-theological tenets of traditional thought and religion. Yet, paradoxically, this does not bring him to the rejection of the notion of God (atheism), of notions of good and bad (cynicism), or even of ordinary religion (anti-religion). On the contrary, his philosophy as a whole can be seen as a radical reconsideration of religion in the light of the modern situation, and not at all as an exit from it. In line with the new science, Spinoza develops a new metaphysics centered on the notion Deus sive Natura (and not simply Natura), a new rational ethics (Ethics IV), and a new philosophical religion (Ethics V). The new philosophical religion, being at the same time the culmination of the ethical life, is based upon the non-anthropomorphic, but still somehow transcendent, notion of God, the one substance with infinite attributes, radically different from the modes, both finite and infinite. In the final part of this article, an attempt is made to acquire some form of inside perspective on what Spinoza may mean by true religion as consisting in amor Dei intellectualis. Anticipating Hume, Spinoza considers ordinary religion as a natural phenomenon, which he studies in detail in his Tractatus Theologico-politicus. Unlike later Enlightenment thinkers, he distinguishes between superstition and purified religion, and accepts that the latter can bring a specific kind of salvation for the common people.