BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
rather than in following the teachings of the Holy Spirit. Far from consisting
of love, it has been turned, under the false labels of holy devotion
and ardent zeal, into the promotion of con£ict and dissemination of
senseless hatred.
These bad things have been aggravated by superstition, which teaches
people to despise reason, and nature, and revere and venerate only such
98 things as con£ict with these both. So it is hardly surprising that to
enhance their admiration and reverence for scripture, men seek to interpret
it in such a way that it seems to con£ict altogether with reason and
with nature.They imagine that the most profound mysteries are hidden
in Holy Scripture and put all their energy into investigating these absurd
issues while neglecting other matters which are useful.The fantasies they
come up with they ascribe to the Holy Spirit, attempting to defend them
with all the force and power of their passions. For this is how human
beings are constructed: whatever they conceive purely with their intellects,
they also defend purely with intellect and reason while, on the
other hand, whatever opinions they derive from their passions, they
defend with their passions.
[2] To extricate ourselves from such confusion and to free our minds
from theological prejudices and the blind acceptance of human ¢ctions
as God’s teaching, we need to analyse and discuss the true method of
interpreting Scripture. For if we do not know this, we can know nothing
for certain regarding what the Bible or the Holy Spirit wishes to teach.To
formulate the matter succinctly, I hold that the method of interpreting
Scripture, does not di¡er from the [correct] method of interpreting
nature, but rather is wholly consonant with it. The [correct] method of
interpreting nature consists above all in constructing a natural history,
from which we derive the de¢nitions of natural things, as from certain
data. Likewise, to interpret Scripture, we need to assemble a genuine
history of it and to deduce the thinking of the Bible’s authors by valid
inferences from this history, as from certain data and principles.
Provided we admit no other criteria or data for interpreting Scripture
and discussing its contents than what is drawn from Scripture itself
and its history, we will always proceed without any danger of going
astray, and we shall have the same assuredness in discussing things that
surpass our understanding as in discussing things that we learn by the
natural light of reason.
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