BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
as a result of so many miracles was a calf. This was shameful! Asaph
despite having heard of so many miracles, nevertheless still doubted
God’s providence and would have turned from the true path had he not
¢nally understood the true happiness (see Psalm 73). Solomon too, in
whose time the a¡airs of the Jews were at their most £ourishing, suspects
all things happen by chance: see Ecclesiastes 3:19^21, 9:2^3 etc. Finally, it
88 was thoroughly obscure to most prophets how the order of nature and
human a¡airs was consistent with the conception of God’s providence
which they had formed. However, this was always entirely clear to the
philosophers who seek to understand things not from miracles but from
clear concepts, or at any rate to those [philosophers] who place true
happiness in virtue and peace of mind alone, and do not attempt to make
nature obey them but rather strive to obey nature themselves. They have
certain knowledge that God directs nature not as the particular laws of
human nature urge but as its universal laws require and, hence, that God
takes account not just of the human race but of nature in its entirety.
[11] It is thus also evident from Scripture itself that miracles do not
yield true knowledge of God and do not clearly demonstrate the providence
of God. The incidents frequently encountered in the Bible where
God performs wonders to make himself known to men (as in Exodus
10.2 where God deceived the Egyptians and gave signs of himself so that
the Israelites might know that he was God), do not show that the miracles
really proved this; they only show that the beliefs of the Jews were
such that they could readily be convinced by these miracles. We clearly
proved above in chapter 2 that prophetic arguments, or arguments
derived from revelation, are not drawn from universal and basic concepts
but from the preconceptions and beliefs, no matter how absurd, of those
to whom the revelations are made or whom the holy spirit seeks to convince.We
illustrated this by many examples and by the testimony of Paul,
who was a Greek to the Greeks and a Jew to the Jews.
While these miracles could persuade the Egyptians and Hebrews
because of their prior beliefs, yet they could not yield any true idea and
knowledge of God. Miracles could only bring them to acknowledge that
there is a deity more powerful than all things known to them, and that he
watched over the Hebrews, for whom at that point in time everything had
succeeded beyond their expectations. Miracles could not demonstrate to
them that God cares equally for all men: only philosophy can teach this.
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