ABSTRACT
The impression is that the content of beliefs did not matter too much. In the religious background lay a puritanical disdain for theological subtlety. What counted was virtuous action. So, to the immense outrage of Spinoza’s contemporaries, a virtuous Muslim would be more admirable than an a badly-behaved but orthodox Christian –
– though there was the stealthy proviso that beliefs should not be ‘alien to the divine nature’, which could as well be ‘to divine nature’: a consistency test of unstated power. Apart from that, not much of this was too unusual. It placed Spinoza at one extreme pole of the traditional post-Reformation dichotomy between ‘faith’ and ‘good works’, as he signalled himself in citing one of the traditional texts: ‘faith does not bring salvation through itself, but only by reason of obedience; or, as James says (ch. 2 v. 7), faith in itself without works is dead’ (ibid.) – although his theological position, and his choice of text, might be unexpected, given his preference for Reformed-Protestant company and his normal dislike of Catholicism.
