From Averroean Conjunction to Spinozist Separation: The Problem of the Relationship between Philosophy and Religion in Medieval and Modern Thought

Abstract

This article investigates the epistemological and political foundations of the relationship between philosophy and religion through a comparative reading of Averroes’ The Decisive Treatise and Baruch Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise. It argues that the transition from the Averroist paradigm of qualified conjunction to the Spinozist paradigm of principled separation marks a decisive shift in the history of philosophical modernity.

Within the medieval horizon, Averroes sought to secure the juridical legitimacy of philosophy through demonstrative interpretation, affirming the harmony between reason and revelation while confining esoteric inquiry to an intellectual elite. This reconciliation remained structurally subordinated to the preservation of religious and political order.

Spinoza, by contrast, reconfigured the debate by subjecting Scripture to historical-critical analysis and by grounding the autonomy of reason in a new conception of political authority. Philosophy was no longer tasked with safeguarding doctrinal concord but with defending freedom of thought as the normative foundation of the civil state. 

The article concludes that Spinoza’s intervention transforms the very function of philosophy—from knowledge of the divine to the institutionalization of intellectual freedom as a condition of social peace and political coexistence.