  This ethical understanding of religion is reflected in the way that Spinoza re-conceives of several crucial religious concepts. For instance, he claims that a text is sacred to the extent that it fosters devotion to God and charity to others (e.g., TTP 12/151) and that a person’s piety is measured in terms of her or his commitment to justice, charity, and obedience. Since the aim of religion is obedience and good works, and the aim of philosophy is truth, religion and philosophy ought not to be seen as rivals. By separating religion and philosophy, faith and reason, Spinoza distances himself both from those who—like Maimonides and Spinoza’s friend Ludwig Meyer—contort Scripture to make it conform to reason and those who claim that where Scripture conflicts with reason it is reason that we must renounce (TTP, Ch. 15). According to Spinoza, because reason and faith have separate domains, neither is subservient to the other. The separation thesis has profound political import, since by claiming that religion is not, like philosophy, a source of knowledge, Spinoza undercuts the grounds for the theological disputes that were the source of considerable unrest in the Dutch Republic. The dominant message of the separation thesis is that Scripture is not the source of metaphysical knowledge and so we ought not to treat it as authoritative in these matters.