Spinoza, Bayle and the Case for Toleration

Mission Brief #11

Two outsiders in Dutch port cities asked a question that terrified Europe's rulers: who gave anyone the right to police another person's beliefs?

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Connect the dots between past and present.

⚡ The twist

There's always more than one side to the story.

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Europe's wars of religion, ending with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, left a pressing question: could people of different faiths live together? Two thinkers in the Dutch Republic, the most tolerant state of the age, gave bold answers. Baruch Spinoza, expelled from Amsterdam's Jewish community in 1656, argued in his anonymous Theological-Political Treatise (1670) that the Bible should be studied historically and that the state should protect freedom of thought.

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Pierre Bayle, a French Protestant refugee in Rotterdam, responded to Louis XIV's 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes by arguing that forcing belief is wrong because a sincere conscience, even a mistaken one, deserves respect. His Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697) used footnotes to expose contradictions in accepted stories. Contemporaries of many faiths condemned Spinoza's ideas in particular, and historians such as Jonathan Israel see both men as founders of a 'Radical Enlightenment'.

Key facts

Remember these

1Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was published anonymously in 1670 and banned in the Dutch Republic in 1674.
2Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, ending legal toleration of French Protestants.
3Bayle's Philosophical Commentary (1686) argued that compelling people to convert is unjust.
4Bayle's Historical and Critical Dictionary was first published in 1697.

Timeline

When it happened

1648
The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War.
1670
Spinoza publishes the Theological-Political Treatise anonymously.
1685
Louis XIV revokes the Edict of Nantes.
1697
Bayle publishes his Historical and Critical Dictionary.

Places to know

Where it happened

Amsterdam
52.37° N, 4.90° E
Rotterdam
51.92° N, 4.48° E

Then & Now

Freedom of conscience, the principle that the state should not compel belief, appears in many modern constitutions and human rights charters.

Mind = blown

Spinoza supported himself partly by grinding optical lenses, a skilled craft valued by scientists of his day.

Question 1 of 3

What event prompted Bayle's argument against forced conversion?

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Question 2 of 3

Why was the Dutch Republic a natural home for these arguments?

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Question 3 of 3

What was distinctive about Bayle's defense of conscience?

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