Breaking Superstition: Religion, Politics, and Freedom of Though in Spinoza

Abstract

This article examines why Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) treats superstition (superstitio) not merely as an epistemic error but as a fundamental political problem. Conducted through the lens of Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, this article defines superstition as a thought pattern through which power organizes fear, and explains the primary mechanism by which religion becomes an instrument of political oppression. The central argument is as follows: according to Spinoza, superstition is a belief form that enables the governance of people through fear and passive affects (passiones), and therefore constitutes the primary foundation of every authoritarian power. In this analysis, Spinoza draws a rigorous distinction between affectio (affection), affectus (affect), and passio (passion): while affectus names the transition from one degree of perfection to another, that is, the continuous variation of the power to exist, passio is the passive kind of this variation whose proximate cause lies in external forces rather than in the individual's own nature. The institutions of prophecy, belief in miracles, and the monopolization of scriptural interpretation are the mechanisms that transform superstition into a systematic tool of domination. A democratic and free political order is possible only through arrangements that break superstition, reduce fear, and orient people toward rational thought and active affects (affectus activi). Spinoza's defense of freedom of thought and expression is, in this framework, not merely an individual rights claim but the necessary condition for breaking superstition and building political freedom. The article discusses the relevance of Spinoza's critique of superstition for contemporary democratic theory, situated within the historical context of the seventeenth-century theological-political crisis.