BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

On miracles
I could not infer from principles revealed in Scripture. But here I have
drawn particular conclusions only from principles known by the natural
light of reason and done this deliberately. Since prophecy is beyond
human understanding and is a purely theological issue, I could not say or
know what it is in itself, as such, except on the basis of revealed principles.
I was therefore obliged there to construct a history of prophecy and
to derive certain dogmas from it which would show me its nature and
characteristics, so far as that can be done. But with regard to miracles, the
question we are investigating (namely, whether we may concede that
something happens in nature which contradicts its laws or which does
not conform to them) is wholly philosophical. Therefore I did not need
a similar approach. I thought it more advisable to elucidate this question
from principles known by the natural light of reason since these
are the best known. I say that ‘I thought it more advisable’; for I could
also readily have dealt with it solely on the basis of biblical dogmas and
principles, and I will expand on this here in a few words, so that it will
be clear to everyone.
[22] In some passages Scripture says of nature in general that it preserves
a ¢xed and immutable order, as in Psalm 148.6 and Jeremiah
31.35^6. Furthermore, the philosopher in his book of Ecclesiastes 1.10
very clearly explains that nothing new happens in nature; and in verses
11 and 12, in illustration of the same thing, he says that, although
sometimes something happens which appears to be new, it is actually not
new but occurred in past times of which there is no memory. For, as he
himself says, there is no remembrance of former things among those
who live today, nor will there be any memory of today’s a¡airs among
those who are to come. Then, at 3.11, he says that God has ordered all
things properly, in their time, and at verse 14 he says that he knows that
whatever God does endures for ever, nor can anything be added to it nor
anything taken away. All this evidently proves that nature maintains a
¢xed and immutable order, that God has been the same in all ages
known and unknown to us, and that the laws of nature are so perfect and
so fruitful that nothing can be added to or detracted from them, and
miracles only seem to be new owing to men’s ignorance. This, then, is
what is explicitly taught in Scripture; nowhere does it teach us that anything
happens in nature that contradicts nature’s laws or cannot follow 96
from them; and we should not attribute any such doctrine to it.
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