What is a philosophical religion? Carlos Fraenkel proposes that we use this term to describe “the interpretation of the historical forms of a religion in philosophical terms”. Such a philosophical interpretation allows religious traditions to be utilized in service of a political-pedagogical program, the goal of which is orienting society towards the highest good: human excellence. Here, I outline the idea of a philosophical religion as it can be found in the Arabic tradition of rationalist Aristotelianism and scrutinize Spinoza’s ambiguous response to this idea. Despite his programmatic separation of theology and philosophy, I argue, Spinoza, at least in some crucial passages, shows himself to be engaged in the project of retrieving the truths of philosophy through the interpretation of Scripture. Thus, there are two contradictory strains at work in Spinoza’s philosophy of religion: he systematically denies that Scripture is the locus of truth, yet he articulates parts of his philosophical anthropology and rational theology by means of Scriptural exegesis. Both of these strains, however, depend on the claim that the final arbiter of truth about the divine and the one true act of worship of God is metaphysics.

中文翻译：

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斯宾诺莎与哲学宗教的可能性

什么是哲学宗教？卡洛斯·弗朗克尔（Carlos Fraenkel）提出，我们用这个术语来描述“用哲学术语解释宗教的历史形式”。这种哲学解释允许将宗教传统用于政治教育计划，该计划的目标是使社会朝着人类的最高利益方向发展。在这里，我概述了一种哲学宗教的思想，这种思想可以在理性主义的亚里士多德主义的阿拉伯传统中找到，并仔细研究了斯宾诺莎对这一思想的模棱两可的回应。我认为，尽管斯宾诺莎计划性地将神学和哲学分开，但至少在一些关键段落中，斯宾诺莎显示出自己正致力于通过解释圣经来检索哲学真理的项目。因此，斯宾诺莎的宗教哲学有两个相互矛盾的张力：他系统地否认圣经是真理的源头，但他却通过圣经的释经来阐明他的哲学人类学和理性神学的某些部分。然而，这两种压力都取决于这样一种说法，即关于神的真理的最终仲裁者和对上帝敬拜的一种真实行为是形而上学。