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152575 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.24918 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved 2014 iv, 83 p Masters Thesis Academic theses Text eng Belcheff, David Samuelson, Norbert Clay, Eugene Foley, Peter Arizona State University Partial requirement for: M.A., Arizona State University, 2014 Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-83) Field of study: Religious studies Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677) is most often treated as a secular philosopher in the literature. But the critical-historical and textual analyses explored in this study suggest that Spinoza wrote the Ethics not as a secular project intended to supersede monotheism for those stoic enough to plumb its icy depths, but rather, and as is much less often assumed, as a genuinely Judeo-Christian theological discourse accounting for the changing scientific worldviews and political realities of his time. This paper draws upon scholarship documenting Spinoza's involvement with Christian sects such as the Collegiants and Quakers. After establishing the largely unappreciated importance of Spinoza's religious or theological thought, a close reading of the Ethics demonstrates that friendship is the theme that ties together Spinoza's ethical, theological, political, and scientific doctrines. Religion Theology Religious history Collegiants Ethics Friendship Quakers Spinoza Philosophy and religion Spinoza on the spirit of friendship