BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

On miracles
without risk of doubt. For if we could conceive that the axioms themselves
might be modi¢ed by whatever power then we could doubt their
truth, and hence also our conclusion concerning God’s existence, and
could never be certain about anything. Furthermore, we know nothing
conforms to nature or con£icts with it, except what we have shown to
agree or con£ict with those [evident] principles. Therefore if we could
conceive that anything in nature could be brought about by any power
(whatever power that might be) which con£icts with nature, it would be 85
in con£ict with those primary principles and therefore would have to be
rejected as absurd, or else there would be doubts about those primary
principles (as we have just shown) and, consequently, about God and
about all our perceptions of whatever kind. It is far from true, therefore,
that miracles ^ in so far as the word is used for a phenomenon that
con£icts with the order of nature ^ prove for us the existence of God.
On the contrary, they would make us call into doubt that very point,
since, without them, we could be absolutely certain of it, because we
know that all things follow the certain and unchangeable order of nature.
[7] But let it be supposed that a miracle is something that cannot be
explained by natural causes. This can be understood in two ways: either
it does indeed have natural causes though they cannot be discovered by
human understanding, or it admits no cause but God or the will of God.
But because all things that happen by natural causes also happen by the
sole power and will of God, we must necessarily conclude, ¢nally, that
whether a miracle has natural causes or not, it is a phenomenon that
cannot be explained by a cause, that is, it is a phenomenon that surpasses
human understanding. But we can understand nothing of a phenomenon,
or of anything at all, that surpasses our understanding. For
whatever we understand clearly and distinctly, must become known to us
either by itself or by means of something else that is understood clearly
and distinctly. Therefore, we cannot understand from a miracle, or work
which surpasses our understanding, the essence of God or his existence,
or anything about God and nature.
On the contrary, since we know that all things are determined and
ordained by God, and that the operations of nature follow from the
essence of God, and the laws of nature are the eternal laws and volitions of
God, we must conclude, unconditionally, that we get a fuller knowledge of
God and God’s will as we acquire a fuller knowledge of natural things and
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