Modern Democracy and the Theological-Political Problem in Spinoza, Rousseau, and Jefferson

This study examines the intersection of two philosophical developments that arguably have come to define contemporary life in the liberal democratic west. First, it considers how democracy has transformed historically from being one among several plausible forms of government into the only legitimate and publicly defensible regime. Second, it considers how modern democracy attempts to solve what has been called the 'theological-political problem,' that is, the competing claims to rule grounded in conflicting appeals to reason and revelation, by determining that consent of the people would replace divine authorization as the source of political authority. Understanding the emergence of modern democracy requires examining the manner in which democratic political thinkers, most importantly Benedict Spinoza, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson re-conceptualized the traditional understanding of the relation between politics and religion. This book will show that Spinoza, Rousseau and Jefferson were the three who made the democratic west we know today.

Dr. Lee Ward is Alpha Sigma Nu, Associate Professor of Political Science at Campion College at the University of Regina, USA. He is the author of The Politics of Liberty in England and Revolutionary America (Cambridge, 2004), John Locke and Modern Life (Cambridge, 2010), and co-editor with Ann Ward of the Ashgate Research Companion to Federalism (Ashgate, 2009) and Natural Right and Political Philosophy (Notre Dame, 2013).

Acknowledgements
Introduction: A Pre-history of Democracy
1. Spinoza and Democracy as the Best Regime
2. Rousseau and Democratic Civil Religion
3. Thomas Jefferson: Bringing Democracy Down from the Heavens
Conclusion
References