Cai Jiangfan and Chai Qianyu: An Analysis of Marx's Critique and Transcendence of Spinoza's Rational Theology
I. Defining the Problem
Rationalist philosophy in the 17th century focused its efforts on criticizing traditional religion and scholasticism while remaining inevitably and deeply influenced by religion, manifesting a character of seeking balance between reason and faith. As the first person to propose explaining the Bible through scientific reason, Spinoza replaced the pursuit of a false anthropomorphic god with the pursuit of truth and wisdom. This represented the emerging bourgeoisie's use of nature and techno-scientific rationality to oppose feudal autocratic rule, possessing epoch-making significance. Leibniz, Lessing, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, the Young Hegelians, and even Nietzsche (who followed shortly after Marx) all held Spinoza in high esteem; Marx's own thoughts on the critique of religion were deeply influenced by Spinoza's critical trajectory. By the 20th century, a contemporary Western radical left-wing "Spinozist Marxism" emerged, spanning from Althusser to Negri; Althusser even declared that, in a philosophical sense, Spinoza was Marx's only "ancestor."
However, Spinoza’s use of geometry—characterized by stasis and abstraction—to understand a moving and developing natural world meant his theory was destined to contain internal contradictions between the finite and the infinite, and between content and form. These contradictions led to a "struggle" over Spinoza between materialism and idealism.
During Spinoza’s lifetime, Christians accused him of "surreptitiously peddling atheism," and his Ethics was regarded as an atheistic book that "profaned religion." Following his death, as his ideas spread across Europe, his identification as an "atheist" grew. In the Encyclopédie, the French materialist Diderot regarded Spinoza as an "atheist," and Holbach likewise called Spinoza’s philosophy an "atheistic system." Pierre Bayle, meanwhile, refuted the speculative and metaphysical qualities of Spinoza’s philosophy from a skeptical perspective, while announcing the possibility of the existence of a society composed of atheists.
At the end of the 18th century, beginning with the "Pantheism Controversy" [1] sparked by Jacobi and Mendelssohn over whether Lessing was a "Spinozist," Spinoza’s philosophy entered the purview of the German theoretical circles. In the first half of the 19th century, Heine noted: "All our present philosophers, perhaps often without knowing it, view the world through the lenses ground [2] by Baruch Spinoza." Hegel regarded Spinoza as the focal point of modern philosophy, believing that modern philosophy "is either Spinozism or it is not philosophy."
When Spinoza’s monist idea of unifying thinking and being through "God (Substance)" was unearthed by Schelling and Hegel, German philosophy was mired in the predicament of a deepening opposition between subject and object; the revival of Spinozist philosophy was thus timely. Schelling and Hegel misinterpreted Spinoza as a precursor to objective idealism, both proposing the feasibility of using Spinoza’s Substance to resolve the problem of dualism. However, they also recognized the fatal flaw of Spinoza’s philosophy—the stasis of Substance. Different solutions to this flaw led to diverging understandings of the problem of spiritual unity between Schelling and Hegel. In Schelling’s view, Spinoza’s Substance merely existed in a rigid and static manner, lacking the process of how Substance transitions from the infinite to the finite; such a self-enclosed system was "an unfolded system." Borrowing Fichte’s "I" (Ich), he attempted to transform it into a new "Substance (God)"; for Schelling, "God is nothing other than the absolute I." He believed philosophy and religion were equally important, and in his later years attempted to establish a "philosophy of religion." Although Hegel gave high praise to Spinoza, he similarly saw the rigidity and stasis of the Spinozist doctrine of Substance, emphasizing instead the dynamic process of self-development, self-realization, and self-cognition through which actual existence eventually returns to itself by constantly knowing itself. In Hegel’s work, philosophy becomes an existence superior to religion; religion becomes a developmental stage of philosophy, and God, as a "Concept," realized merely as a moment of his supreme Idea. Hegel replaced the worship of "God" with the worship of the "Absolute Spirit," the essence of which is the worship of bourgeois ideology. Like Schelling—or rather, a step further than Schelling—he completed the substitution of theology through reason, while simultaneously making himself into a theology. Feuerbach criticized him, saying he "negated theology with philosophy, and then negated philosophy with theology," serving as the "last refuge and final theoretical pillar" of religious theology.
Feuerbach categorized Spinoza’s philosophy within the scope of "speculative philosophy," believing that "the secret of speculative philosophy is theology." He argued it was founded by Spinoza in the modern era, revived by Schelling, and completed by Hegel. It took the divine substance—which ordinary theology had placed in the world beyond due to fear and ignorance—and objectified and realized it in this world; it was the inevitable result of theology developing to its limit. In Feuerbach’s view, the act of "treating the independent substances of polytheism as predicates and attributes of a single independent substance" is essentially "negating theology from a theological standpoint," because these so-called "predicates and attributes of an independent substance" remain the substance itself. Therefore, clear truth can only be obtained if this speculative logic is inverted, making the "predicate the subject, and the subject the object and principle." Thus, "'atheism' is 'pantheism' turned upside down," and is the inevitable conclusion of this ultimate "pantheism."
From the perspective of the critique of religion, 18th- and 19th-century German Classical Philosophy completed the inheritance of Spinoza’s rationalist philosophy and, on this basis, achieved a critique and transcendence of Spinoza. By the time of Feuerbach, the theological character of rationalist philosophy since Spinoza was gradually revealed. This provided an important intellectual source for Marx to reconsider and inherit the spirit of rational critique since Spinoza, to realize a thorough critique and sublation (Aufhebung) of the theological essence of rationalist philosophy, and to complete the turn toward a "new philosophy." As Marx later evaluated, "what Spinoza considered the cornerstone of his system and what actually constitutes this cornerstone are two completely different things." On one hand, Marx absorbed the spirit of religious critique from Spinoza and his successors; on the other hand, with deeper historical insight, he criticized the rational theological system and modes constructed by Spinoza and the "Spinozists." However, further clarifying Spinoza’s rational theological system and conducting research on Marx’s critique and transcendence of Spinozist rational theology from the perspective of religious critique—ensuring Marx is not trapped in the mire of Spinozism—is a direction we urgently need to reflect upon today.
II. The Rational Theological Essence of Spinoza’s Critique of Religion
As the starting point of rationalism, Descartes was the first to replace a personalized God with a metaphysical God. Spinoza was deeply influenced by Descartes, yet differed from him: while Descartes started from the mind, Spinoza started from "God." Based on a critique of revealed religion and the personalized God, Spinoza attempted to construct "true religion" and "God," replacing the "first substance" and personalized God with a unique Substance possessing the attribute of being a self-cause (causa sui), thereby profoundly advancing the critique of faith by reason.
(i) Substance Monism Starting from Divine Necessity
The core view of Spinoza’s rational theological system is that "God is Nature" and is the "unique Substance." Spinoza defines "God" as follows: "By God, I understand a being absolutely infinite, that is to say, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality." "Except God, no substance can be or be conceived." For Spinoza, "Substance" is "that which is in itself and is conceived through itself." Borrowing the concept of "self-cause," Spinoza demonstrated that Substance necessarily exists. This method of explaining the world from the world itself was praised by Engels as "the highest honor of the philosophy of the time."
Starting from this nature of the necessary existence of Substance, Spinoza deduced six characteristics of "God": "God necessarily exists; God is unique; God exists and acts solely from the necessity of His own nature; God is the free cause of all things, and in what way He is the free cause; all things are in God and depend on God, such that without God they can neither exist nor be conceived; all things are predetermined by God—not by the free will or absolute whim of God, but by the absolute nature or infinite power of God." He accomplished two negations: first, a negation of previous philosophers who viewed God as a "final cause" or "eminent cause." "God" was given the definitions of "self-cause" and "immanent cause," moving from being above nature to being identical with nature; the existence of "God" thus gained a "sufficient reason." Second, he negated the accidentalism of revealed religion. The activities of "God" arise from causal necessity; those contingencies such as miracles, prophecies, prophets, and the "chosen people" are merely a collection of the imaginations of theologians. All things, including "God," are situated within the chain of natural causality; the anthropomorphic God no longer exists here.
Spinoza borrowed the views of Thomas Aquinas but distinguished himself from Aquinas’s analytical method, which provided reasons for the existence of an anthropomorphic God based on the nature of things and human daily experience. Spinoza divided "Nature" into "naturing Nature" (natura naturans) and "natured Nature" (natura naturata) to explain how God is identical to nature. The former, as the cause of "Nature," refers to the infinitely many essential attributes of "God" (Substance); the latter is the result of "Nature," referring to "all the modes of God’s attributes." "God" (Substance), as a "thing-in-itself," exists and acts according to the necessity of its nature. "Things could have been produced by God in no other manner and in no other order than that in which they have been produced." "In nature there is nothing contingent," and all things can only be known through "God" (Substance). Thus, Spinoza changed the "God" emphasized by traditional revealed religion—which transcends all things—into Nature itself which encompasses all things. "God" as "self-cause" and "unique Substance" is both the creator and the result of creation, replacing the anthropomorphic god of traditional religion with a "natural" God existing as the immanent cause of all things.
Spinoza identified the three concepts of "God," "Nature," and "Substance," but with different emphases in usage. Leon Roth described this in his book Spinoza: "When Spinoza considers origin, he seems to use 'God'; when he considers structure, he seems to use 'Nature'; when he considers material, he seems to use 'Substance.' They are entirely the same thing, though viewed from different points of view." This indicates the diversity of Spinoza's intellectual sources: "God" comes from the theological field, used to eliminate theological teleology and explain the cause of the world; "Nature" comes from the field of natural science, used to demonstrate the activity of "God" and prevent his causal system from falling into a state of rigidity; "Substance" is taken from the field of metaphysics, used to demonstrate the necessary existence of "God" and thereby break free from the anthropomorphic God. The mutual constraint and complement of these three terms in Spinoza’s work formed a "trinity" of the concept of the rational God.
(ii) The Theological Attributes of the "True Religion" Conception Based on the Critique of Traditional Religious "Superstition"
By constructing the concept of "God" in his own mind, Spinoza argued that the essence of traditional revealed religion is "superstition." "Superstition" has several prominent characteristics.
First, "superstition" creates a fiction of "God." In Spinoza’s view, traditional revealed religion is nothing but a "fraud" of human wisdom, exploiting the ignorance of the masses, imposing human attributes onto "God," and creating an anthropomorphic god with "human nature." The so-called supernatural God is merely the subjective imagination of theologians and a phantom of the mind; things like prophecies and miracles are the "superstitious" preachings used by theologians to deceive the masses. "Superstition" is contrary to reason: "Superstition... teaches men to despise reason and nature, and to nourish and venerate only that which is repugnant to both." Spinoza believed that we cannot regard the prejudices and commentaries created by theologians out of passion as "Sacred Scripture"; rather, we should explain the Bible from a rational and historical perspective, taking into account the historical background, personal lives of the authors, linguistic characteristics of each book, and the historical fate of the texts. Pointing out the contradictions and obscurities in the Bible—such as chronological distortions, verbal contradictions, and factual inconsistencies—is "the most accurate method of investigating the true meaning of Scripture."
Second, "superstition" is born of fear. Spinoza held that "superstition is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear." Superstition does not originate in reason; rather, it is a fluctuation of intense emotions derived from hope, hatred, anger, and deception. It is a fear of the path ahead arising from ignorance of natural causal necessity, and a longing for novelty born of the sorrow and unbearable nature of suffering. Traditional revealed religions exploit and amplify this point, using various rituals and dogmas to delude the human heart. Under such deception, people gradually decline into objects of religious enslavement and lose their freedom entirely under despotic rule, leading to a state where "the light of reason is not only despised but even cursed by many as the source of impiety toward God." Consequently, Spinoza advocated for the establishment of a democratic polity that guarantees freedom of belief and expression. In his view, "the ultimate aim of government is not to rule or restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, but, on the contrary, to free every man from fear." Such a realm of reason must be established to ensure that people can freely exercise their intellect and exist as the masters of their own thoughts.
Third, "superstition" attempts to meddle in knowledge. Spinoza criticized the tendency of scholastic philosophers since the Middle Ages to pull Greek philosophy toward theology, arguing that this essentially damaged both. He clearly pointed out that "the aim of philosophy is only truth, while religious faith, as we have abundantly proved, is only obedience and piety"; "theology is not the handmaid of reason, nor is reason the handmaid of theology." Spinoza redefined religion within a metaphysical horizon: "I consider it to be religion when we have an idea of God or when we know God, and when all our desires and actions have ourselves as their cause." Spinoza divided "true religion" into two parts: first, "universal religion" or "moral religion," which guides the masses toward goodness but provides no theoretical knowledge; second, the religion of the few—that is, the religion of philosophers—which is a realm incomprehensible to the general public where knowledge is the object of study. Based on rationalism, Spinoza categorized knowledge into three types: sensitive knowledge (based on vague experience, hearsay, opinion, and imagination), indirect rational knowledge (based on reasoning and demonstration), and intuitive knowledge (based on correct ideas of God's attributes). He termed the latter two "true knowledge," believing they teach us to distinguish truth from the errors caused by the first type, thereby producing a correct cognition—that is, a true idea—of "God." Spinoza emphasized that "true religion" should focus on compliance with divine law and the cultivation of virtue, whereas traditional revealed religions based on superstition are confined to false rituals, treating prayer and sacrifice as the standard for defining faith, while ignoring that "the highest good of the mind is the knowledge of God, and the highest virtue of the mind is to know God."
In Spinoza, reason and faith—philosophy and theology—are separated yet reconciled. Their separation is manifest in that "the sphere of reason is truth and wisdom, while the sphere of theology is piety and obedience." Their reconciliation is manifest in three aspects: only religion established on a rational basis is "true religion"; a better understanding of religious revelation requires the power of reason; and reason is not omnipotent, requiring faith to supplement it. Reason and faith are integrated into a unified whole, forming a typical system of rational theology.
III. Marx's Thorough Critique and Transcendence of Spinoza's Rational Theology
Marx's critique and transcendence of Spinoza’s rational theology was built upon the inheritance, critique, and sublation [3] of Spinoza by 17th- to 19th-century European deism, atheism, and idealist philosophy. This transcendence was a dynamic process that followed the development of Marx’s own thought, gradually enriching as his ideological perspective shifted. It can be divided into three stages. In the first stage, Marx viewed Spinoza’s rational theological system through a "Hegelian" lens, discovering the undercurrents of theological and political critique in Spinoza’s thought that echoed the ancient Greek philosophers, particularly the Epicureans. In the second stage, based on Feuerbach’s materialist position, Marx negated Spinoza as a representative of metaphysics, gradually moving away from speculation toward reality. In the third stage, standing on the position of the new worldview, Marx conducted a thorough "settling of accounts" with all old materialist and idealist philosophies—especially the modern rationalism since Spinoza—dissolving the "abstract world" and "mysterious reason" constructed by the bourgeoisie’s idealist conception of history into the practice of real people and the secular society in which they live. Marx’s ultimate goal was to leap out of the "cage" of rationalism, no longer falling into the circular trap of "using reason to criticize reason," and to provide a new answer to the contradictions between reason and faith, thinking and being, and spirit and nature.
(1) The First Stage: Absorption and Critique of Spinoza’s Rational Theological Thought
Marx’s reading of Spinoza was concentrated during the preparation and writing of his doctoral dissertation between 1839 and 1841, during which he completed excerpts from Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Judging by the sequence of his excerpts in the Berlin Notebooks, Marx first transcribed Chapter VI, "Of Miracles." This constitutes Spinoza’s critique of the premises of revealed religion and his negation of accidentalism, as well as his exposure of how theologians use passions and imagination to create "miracles" to deceive ignorant believers. Next, Marx excerpted Chapters XIV through XX. In Marx’s view, freedom of thought and a democratic polity should not serve as conclusions but as premises for launching a critique of revealed theology and the Bible. His transcription of statements such as "the true purpose of politics is liberty" and "of all forms of government, democracy is the most natural and the most consonant with individual liberty" reflects Marx’s radical political leanings at the time. Following this, Marx excerpted Chapters VII through XIII. In these chapters, Spinoza identifies various errors and omissions in the Bible through an investigation of its historical and linguistic background, particularly reaching the conclusion that the Jewish scripture, the Pentateuch [4], was not written by Moses but by later authors. Marx greatly admired Spinoza’s rational thinking and realist attitude based on empirical investigation. Finally, Marx excerpted Chapters I through V. Thus, Spinoza’s critique of concepts in revealed theology—such as prophecy, prophets, the chosen people, divine law, and rituals—based on his biblical critique, stood as the conclusion to his critique of religion.
Furthermore, in The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, Marx adapted Spinoza’s view that "ignorance is no argument" to extol the Epicurean spirit of criticizing fear and superstition, arriving at his own assertions regarding atheism. In Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction, he used his high appraisal of Spinoza and others to disclose the reactionary nature of the new censorship decree, which attempted to "describe the inherent universal essence of morality as a mere appendage of religion" and to conflate politics with religion. He pointed out that "according to this instruction, censorship should exclude such giants of thought in the realm of morality as Kant, Fichte, and Spinoza, because they do not believe in religion and would damage rituals, customs, and outward manners." In Comments on the 179th Issue of the 'Kölnische Zeitung', Marx mentioned Spinoza again, noting that "first Machiavelli and Campanella, then later Hobbes, Spinoza, and Hugo Grotius, down to Rousseau, Fichte, and Hegel, began to view the state through human eyes and to elucidate the natural laws of the state from reason and experience rather than from theology," clearly expressing his own rationalist spirit.
At this time, Marx was deeply influenced by the Young Hegelians. To him, Spinoza was an advanced representative who elucidated the natural laws of the state starting from reason rather than theology. However, even in this period, Marx had already moved beyond Spinoza and his era. Spinoza reserved a space for faith and recognized the moral-educational role of the Bible. For Marx, this moral authority based on religious faith no longer existed. In his doctoral thesis, he explicitly expressed an atheist position, setting philosophy in total opposition to religion and tearing away the "fig leaf" of Spinoza’s pantheism.
(2) The Second Stage: Critique and Transcendence of Spinoza’s Metaphysical Theory of Substance
Following the widespread discussion triggered by Ludwig Feuerbach’s critiques of pantheism and speculative philosophy in works such as The Essence of Christianity, Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, and Provisional Theses for the Reformation of Philosophy, Marx, under this influence, gradually cast off his stance of idealism and rational theology. As Engels remarked, "The recent German critique of pantheism is so exhaustive that there is truly nothing to add. The outlines published by Feuerbach in the 'Anekdota' and the works of Bruno Bauer contain everything related to this question." Consequently, Marx turned his critical fire toward the representatives of speculative philosophy then prevalent in Germany after Spinoza—Hegel and the core figure of the Young Hegelians, Bruno Bauer.
In A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx realized the need to treat "theological questions" as "secular questions," arguing that "logical, pantheistic mysticism is clearly revealed here," and that "the Idea becomes the subject, while the real relation of the family and civil society to the state is understood as the internal imaginary activity of the Idea." In The Holy Family, Marx argued that Bauer simplified French Enlightenment philosophy into a debate over "true essence" between two "factions" of Spinozism—materialism and deism—and viewed French materialism as a product of idealism where self-consciousness is alienated and eventually eliminated by self-consciousness. To Marx, this was a double misreading of both French materialism and Spinoza. Therefore, Marx re-examined the history of Enlightenment philosophy, emphasizing the characteristic of 18th-century French materialism in opposing existing political systems, religion, and theology. He pointed out that just as Feuerbach used "sober philosophy" to oppose Hegel’s "drunken speculation," the French Enlightenment was "an open, clear-cut struggle against 17th-century metaphysics and against all metaphysics, especially the metaphysics of Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz." This metaphysics, however, saw a "restoration" in 19th-century German speculative philosophy, forming a "metaphysical, all-embracing kingdom" in Hegel. Marx declared unequivocally that "this metaphysics will forever succumb to the materialism which has now been perfected by the work of speculation itself and coincides with humanism"—that is, the materialism theoretically manifested in Feuerbach and practically in English and French utopian socialism. Thus, Marx refuted the fate of materialism as proclaimed by Bauer. In his view, "Hegel’s History of Philosophy describes French materialism as the realization of Spinoza’s Substance; this is, at any rate, much more sensible than calling it a 'French Spinozist school.'" Hegel at least viewed French Enlightenment philosophy as different interpretations of Substance—the absolute essence—starting from two different points: spirit and matter.
Starting from his critique of Hegelian philosophy, Marx simultaneously criticized Spinoza’s "Substance," arguing that as one of the three elements of the Hegelian system, its essence was "metaphysically disguised nature, separated from man." It was precisely on this point that Strauss—like his companion Bauer, who stood on Fichteanism and emphasized "spirit separated from nature"—one-sidedly developed their respective elements. Thus, while going beyond Hegel, they "thoroughly implemented the Hegelian system within the realm of theology," the result of which was the restoration of the Christian doctrine of creation in the form of speculative Hegelianism. In Marx’s view, "Only Feuerbach, standing upon the Hegelian standpoint, concluded and criticized the Hegelian system, because Feuerbach dissolved the metaphysical Absolute Spirit and turned it into 'real man based on nature.'" Feuerbach essentially used materialism to eliminate the "world beyond truth" and exposed the "holy form of human self-alienation," thereby fostering the basic "conclusion" of German religious critique. Marx believed that Feuerbach failed to take the most important next step, which should be the critique of the "this-worldly" world—the secular world in which people live. Marx then began dedicating himself to finding what Feuerbach had missed: "the path leading from the kingdom of abstractions, which he so extremely loathed, to the living real world."
(3) The Third Stage: Sublating Rational Theology through History, Reality, and Social Practice
After 1845, along with the maturation of his philosophy of praxis, Marx recognized that during his "Feuerbachian" stage, he had been one-sided in simply defining Spinoza's philosophy as metaphysics; meanwhile, the abstract essence of Feuerbach's own philosophy gradually came to light. He attempted to negate all old philosophy, including that of Feuerbach, by means of a brand-new practical worldview. By re-reflecting on the essence of the spirit of rational critique shared by both old modern materialism and idealism, he achieved the unity of the sensuous and the rational, subject and object, and concept and reality.
In Marx’s view, the essence of Spinoza's rational theology lay in using a rational subject to cause an inversion of the relations between subject and object, thinking and being, and concept and reality. Although Feuerbach inverted this inverted relationship once more, he thought from the starting point of the spirit of rational critique rather than from history and reality. Ultimately, he could only achieve the substitution of an abstract concept of "rationality" with an abstract concept of "sensuousness." As a tradition of modern philosophy, this spirit of rational critique restricted modern philosophy—especially German philosophy—to the realm of pure abstract speculation: "They set up their relations according to their ideas of God, of normal man, etc. The products of their brains have got out of their hands. They, the creators, bow down before their creations." [5]
Marx pointed out that this rationalist inversion of concept and reality is rooted in the inversion of the logic of capitalist production. In the process of capitalist production, "the commodity-form... reflects the social characteristics of men’s own labour as objective characteristics of the products of labour themselves, as the socio-natural properties of these things; and it also reflects the social relation of the producers to the sum total of labour as a social relation between objects, a relation which exists apart from and outside the producers." [6] Because of this transformation, the products of labor become objects that are at once perceptible and imperceptible (commodities), and social relations between people manifest as the illusory form of relations between things. Using religion as a metaphor, Marx argued that just as in the "other-worldly realm" (彼岸世界) [7] "the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another and the human race," so it is in the world of commodities. "Things," as products of man, appear as an absolute existence—mystified and dominating commodity production—to be worshipped and treated with superstition. This is fetishism (拜物教). Marx believed that fetishism, as an original form of religious belief, underwent various developmental forms such as commodity fetishism, money fetishism, and capital fetishism alongside the development of the private-property economy. This eventually makes capitalist society an inverted world, an inversion which manifests in the spiritual realm as the rule of abstract reason over reality.
"The sum of productive forces, capital funds and social forms of intercourse, which every individual and generation finds in existence as something given, is the real basis of what the philosophers have conceived as 'substance' and 'essence of man,' and what they have deified and attacked." [8] By excavating the essence of the spirit of rational resistance and exploring its real roots, Marx finally clarified that the ailments of modern rational metaphysics cannot be eliminated by pure spiritual critique alone. Only by starting from the material production of people's direct lives, and by grounding oneself in the actual history of different stages—testing the truth and reality of thinking within practical activity—can the sensuous and the rational, subject and object, and concept and reality truly achieve unity within the subject, "man."
IV. Conclusion
In the era in which Spinoza lived, the bourgeoisie was the main force resisting feudal oppression as an emerging power; philosophy, as a weapon of the bourgeoisie, urgently needed to break free from theological suppression. Therefore, Spinoza regarded human freedom as "the intellectual love of God" and attempted to elevate the status of philosophy, arguing that "that thing is called free, which exists solely by the necessity of its own nature, and of which the action is determined by itself alone." Such freedom can only be realized through rational contemplation because, aside from reason, any other state is necessarily bound by external things. Consequently, Spinoza naturally put forward the demand for the establishment of a bourgeois democratic polity. Such a democratic political state would necessarily realize the freedom of human thought, enabling people to possess the capacity for rational reflection and free judgment, thereby avoiding the vortex of "superstition." The limitations of the era caused him to view political liberation as spiritual liberation and the escape from the rule of the religious kingdom as the primary task, placing full confidence in the bourgeoisie as the main force and forming a rational theological path suited to that era.
By Marx's era, the bourgeoisie had successively established political states, yet the beautiful blueprint depicted by Spinoza had not been realized. Marx recognized Spinoza's theoretical contradictions and historical limitations, gaining a deeper understanding of human liberation. The inequality between the bourgeois political state and civil society, and the oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, illustrated the incompleteness of political liberation. The answer to freedom should not be sought in changes to the state polity but in the economy and society.
Unlike Spinoza, who sought freedom in the love of God, Marx pointed out the true meaning of human liberation from the perspective of historical materialism: the free and well-rounded development of the individual and the return of the human essence. He argued that only by eliminating exploitation and oppression, and by abolishing all appropriation of the labor of others—so that people are no longer controlled by alien forces but can master their own destiny—can true liberation and freedom be achieved.