BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
reason and this natural law; (3) for what purpose ceremonies were originally
instituted; and (4) what is the point of knowing the holy Scriptures and
believing them I shall discuss the ¢rst two questions in this chapter and the
latter two in the next.
[8] What we should think regarding the ¢rst question is readily deduced
from the will of God, which is distinct from God’s intellect only in relation
to our reason; that is, God’s will and God’s understanding are in reality one
and the same thing in themselves, and are only distinguished in relation to
the thoughts which we form about God’s intellect. For example, when we
focus simply on the point that the nature of the triangle is contained in the
divine nature from all eternity as an eternal truth, we say that God has the
idea of a triangle or understands the nature of a triangle. But we may also
63 focus on the point that the nature of the triangle is thus contained in the
divine nature by the necessity of the divine nature alone and not from the
necessity and essence of the triangle, and that since the essence and
properties of the triangle too are conceived as eternal truths, their necessity
depends only upon the necessity of the divine nature and understanding
and not on the nature of the triangle; and in this case what we
have called the understanding of God, we are now calling the will or decree
of God.Therefore with respect to God, we are a⁄rming one and the same
thing when we say that God has decreed and willed from eternity that the
three angles of a triangle be equal to two right angles, or that God understood
this. From which it follows that God’s a⁄rmations or negations
always contain an eternal necessity or truth.
[9] If, for example, God said to Adam that he did not wish him to eat of
‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’, 3 it would entail a contradiction
for Adam to be able to eat of it, and therefore it was impossible that Adam
should eat of it; for that eternal decree must have contained an eternal
necessity and truth. However since Scripture narrates that God gave this
command to Adam and in spite of this Adam did eat of the tree, we must
necessarily infer that God only revealed to Adam the bad e¡ects that
would necessarily befall him if he ate of that tree, but not the necessity
whereby that bad consequence would follow.This is how it was that Adam
perceived that revelation not as an eternal and necessary truth but rather
3 Genesis 2:17.
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