BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

On prophecy
express or explain in its own person the essence or existence of God in
fact or words, that is, by declaring in the ¢rst person,‘I am Jehovah your
God’, etc. It is true that when someone uses his mouth to say, ‘I have
understood’, no one supposes it was the speaker’s mouth that understood;
we know rather it was his mind. But consider the reason for this: the
mouth is part of the nature of the man who spoke, and he to whom the
remark was uttered also knows what an intellect is and easily understands
what is the speaker’s mind by making a comparison with himself. However,
in the case of a people who previously knew nothing of God but his
name, and desired to speak with him so as to be assured of his existence,
I do not see how their desire was met by means of a created thing
(which no more relates to God than do other created things, and does
not belong to God’s nature) proclaiming, ‘I am God.’ What if God had 19
manipulated Moses’ lips (but why Moses and not some animal) to
pronounce the same words and say, ‘I am God’, would they have
understood the existence of God from that
[13] Also, Scripture unequivocally states that God himself spoke (and
descended from heaven to Mount Sinai for this purpose), and not only did
the Jews hear him speaking, but the elders also saw him (see Exodus,
ch. 24). Nor did the Law revealed to Moses, to which nothing could be
added or subtracted and which became the law of the land, ever prescribe
the belief that God is incorporeal or even that he has no image or shape,
but only that he is God and that they must believe in him and adore him
alone.The reason why it enjoined them not to assign any image to him or
to make any image was so that they would not cease worshipping him. For
given they had not seen an image of God, they could not have made one
which would represent him, but only one which would necessarily represent
some other created thing that they had seen. Therefore when they
adored God through that image, they would not be thinking of God but of
the thing which that image re£ected, and thus in the end they would be
giving to that thing the honour and worship due to God. Moreover,
Scripture clearly a⁄rms that God does have a shape, and that when Moses
was listening to God talking, he actually caught a glimpse of him, but saw
nothing but God’s back. 3 For this reason I do not doubt that some mystery
lies hidden here, of which we shall speak at greater length below. Here Iwill
3 Exodus 33.17^23.
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