Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of a key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. This book is directed against interpretations that impute to Baruch Spinoza a rejection of Christianity in all its forms. Spinoza's early life in the Jewish Community of Amsterdam and his later expulsion from it made him an outsider to the European mainstream. But specialized studies are slow to influence the cruder picture of a philosopher which creates the popular conception of him and establishes what scholars may say about him without a footnote and without fear of contradiction. The conventional picture of Spinoza's religious outlook is easiest to maintain if one's focus is firmly on the Ethics. Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus (TTP) could qualify as Christian simply on the strength of the contribution it made to the development of Bible criticism and so to liberal Christian theology.