Fradkin, Hillel G. “The ‘Separation’ of Religion and Politics: The Paradoxes of Spinoza.” The Review of Politics 50, no. 4 (October 1, 1988): 603–627. doi:10.2307/1407356.

Abstract:

“Benedict Spinoza is the first philosophical proponent of liberal democracy. In his Theologico-Political Tractate he calls for the liberation of philosophy from theology and for the subordination of religion to politics. Though Spinoza may have not influenced the American Founding Fathers directly, both the clarity and the paradoxes of his arguments are perhaps the best guide to understanding better the present-day conflicts over religion and politics in the United States. Spinoza’s insistence on the prerogative of the political sovereign to exercise absolute authority in the sphere of moral action necessarily complicates religious values. But the “inconveniences” resulting from liberal democracy are justified in terms of justice.”

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