Spinoza's tiered society

Absent the dyothelete society, the Leviathan tends to a vertical dyotheletism. The Holy Spirit descends from the Father through the Son. The Scripture is politicised. That, argues (at great length) Wiker and Hahn, is the story of Bento Despinoza.

To such lengths, I didn't even spot the politics in the first half of their chapter. Ah me of little faith.

Spinoza is like Locke as a mufassir on Hobbes. He doesn't like that the sovereign be absolute. Wiker and Hahn notant bene that all these philosophers reacted to dangers of their time. As Hobbes demanded security from chaos, Spinoza wanted some means of keeping out the ignorant (goyische) mob. Both agreed that there must be a sovereign, and that the sovereign must use the ambient Scripture to mollify the plebs. Spinoza, as a Jew closer to Torah, proposed how to do this.

Making the Bible an historical document, was how Spinoza did it. Machiavelli had already proposed this before all the Protestants.

And, really, to evangelise the Bible outside Judaeo-Christian circles, anyone has to address unbelievers who will start out assuming it's just someone else's literature. If Machiavelli, Hobbes, and now Spinoza were more motivated to treat this text as outsiders, I don't know that this discredits their project. In fact Catholics should be more motivated than these secular authoritarians; once Luther started out-scriptura'ing the Pope, a pivot against scriptura on Tradition's behalf seems exactly the winning move.

Also like Machiavelli, as noted, Spinoza didn't intend that his advice to princes get out among the rest of us. For Spinoza, the princes were the Protestant elite in Holland and maybe republicans in Italy. Rather than King Henry VIII telling his subjects what Scripture meant, the burghers of Amsterdam and of New Amsterdam would figure out what Scripture intrinsically meant, and - in their wisdom - decide what lessons their pastors (and rabbis!) may preach. Those lessons would be entirely moral, alongside respect for wise authority. In the meantime the universities can get cracking on the exegesis of Scripture because, as Spinoza became aware, the Scripture was riddled with holes and its seventeenth-century interpretation inadequate.

Spinozan liberalism is fragile, assuming the Nederlander bourgeoisie don't suddenly decide to spout self-detrimental slogans like "Spaniard Lives Matter". I wonder if, for Spinoza, Hobbes lay out there as a bogeyman: accept this two-tiered system, and propagandise accordingly; or else you'll default to Leviathan, because the third alternative is anarchy and death.