BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
more clearly understand how they depend on their ¢rst cause and how
they behave according to the eternal laws of nature. From the perspective
of our understanding, hence, we have much more right to term those
phenomena which we understand clearly and distinctly works of God
and attribute them to the will of God, than works of which we are wholly
ignorant, however strongly they grip the imagination and make us marvel.
For it is only the phenomena of nature we understand clearly and
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distinctly that enhance our knowledge of God and reveal as clearly as
possible the will and decrees of God. Therefore, those who have recourse
to the will of God when they are ignorant of something are clearly talking
nonsense: what a ridiculous way to acknowledge one’s ignorance!
[8] Furthermore, even if we could draw conclusions from miracles, we
certainly could not derive [from them] the existence of God. Given that a
miracle is a limited phenomenon, and never reveals anything more than a
¢xed and limited power, it is certain that from such an e¡ect we cannot
infer the existence of a cause whose power is in¢nite, but at most a cause
whose power is fairly large. I say ‘at most’, for a phenomenon may also follow
from several simultaneously concurring causes whose force and power
is less than the power of all these causes together but much greater than
that of each individual cause. Whereas the laws of nature (as we have
already shown) extend to in¢nity, and are conceived by us as having something
of the character of eternity and nature proceeds according to them in
a ¢xed and unalterable order, so that they themselves to that extent give us
some indication of the in¢nity, eternity and immutability of God.
We therefore conclude that we cannot come to know God and his existence
and providence from miracles, the former being much better inferred
from the ¢xed and unalterable order of nature. In reaching this
conclusion I am speaking of a miracle understood simply as a phenomenon
which surpasses, or is thought to surpass, human understanding. For in so
far as it is conceived to destroy or interrupt the order of nature or con£ict
with its laws, to that extent (as we have just shown) not only would it give us
no knowledge of God, it would actually take away the knowledge we naturally
have and make us doubt about God and all things.
[9] Neither do I acknowledge any di¡erence between a phenomenon
which is contrary to nature and a phenomenon which is above nature
(i.e., as some de¢ne it, a phenomenon that does not con£ict with nature
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