BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
This then is what our highest good and happiness is, the knowledge and
love of God. Therefore the means required by this end of all human
actions, which is God himself so far as his idea is in us, may be called the
commands of God, because they are prescribed to us, as it were, by God
himself so far as he exists in our minds, and therefore the rule of life which
looks to this end is best called the divine law. It is for universal ethics to
inquire what these means are and what is the rule of life which this goal
requires, and how the foundations of the best state and the rules for living
among men follow from it. Here I propose only to speak of the divine law in
general.
[5] Since love of God is the highest felicity and happiness of man,
his ¢nal end and the aim of all his actions, it follows that he alone observes
the divine law who is concerned to love God not from fear of punishment
nor love of something else, such as pleasure, fame etc., but from the single
fact that he knows God, or that he knows that the knowledge and love of
God is the highest good. The sum of the divine law therefore and its
61 highest precept is to love God as the highest good, that is, as we have
already said, not to love Him from fear of punishment or penalty, nor for
love of some other thing by which we desire to be pleased. For the idea of
God requires that God should be our highest good: i.e., that the knowledge
and love of God is the ultimate end to which all our actions are to be
directed.The carnal man however cannot understand this; it seems foolish
to him because he has too meagre a knowledge of God, and he ¢nds
nothing in this highest good that he can touch or eat or that makes any
impression on the £esh in which he takes so much pleasure, for knowledge
of God consists in philosophical reasoning alone and pure thought. But
those who know that they possess nothing more excellent than understanding
and a sound mind, will certainly judge that thought and reasoning
are the most solid realities.
We have now explained what the divine law chie£y consists in and what
human laws are; for human laws are all those edicts that have a di¡erent
goal, unless theyhave been sanctioned by divine revelation. For this too is a
ground on which things are attributed to God (as we have shown above),
and in this sense the Law of Moses, even though it is not universal but
adapted solely to the temperament and preservation of one people, may
nevertheless be called a law of God or divine law, since we believe that it
was con¢rmed by prophetic light.
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