"Accommoder la Théologie à ma façon de philosopher": Descartes and Dutch Cartesians Interpreting the Bible

How can we describe the relationship between philosophy and theology in Descartes and in the Dutch Cartesians? We argue that there is no separation, at least in an absolute way, between philosophy and theology. Undoubtedly, Descartes and his Dutch followers take part in the philosophical and scientific movement claiming philosophy and science to be independent of theology. Nonetheless, independence does not mean extraneousness nor opposition: famous scholars have highlighted that, especially regarding God’s attributes, there is a migration of theological categories towards metaphysics and they have emphasized the central role of the doctrine on the creation of eternal truths in Descartes’s metaphysics. We will probably never know whether the project of accommodating theology to Cartesian philosophy, as in the case of the Eucharistic explanations, belonged to Descartes’s original train of thought or if it arose to respond to pressures, criticisms, and censorship. However, this project confers a leading role to philosophy, thus a genuine challenge to tradition. A challenge taken up, in their own way, by his Dutch disciples who transplanted it into a different cultural and religious context, paving the way for a debate Spinoza will shortly thereafter take part in.