BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

The teachings of Scripture
[2] I never cease to be amazed at the ingenuity of those I mentioned
earlier who uncover in Scripture mysteries too profound to be explained
in any human terms and hence imported into religion so many philosophical
questions that the Church now resembles a university and religion
a ¢eld of learning or, rather, ceaseless learned controversy. But, then, why
should one be astonished if those who claim to have a supernatural light
are unwilling to defer in knowledge to philosophers who claim nothing
more than natural understanding Rather it would be truly surprising
had these men introduced anything novel, on any philosophical question,
that had not long before been commonplace among pagan philosophers
(despite which they claim the latter were ‘blind’). For if you ask
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what mysteries they discover hidden in Scripture, you will ¢nd nothing
but the fabrications of Aristotle or Plato or some like philosopher which
mostly could be more readily dreamt up by some layman than derived
from Scripture by even the most consummate scholar.
[3] We do not mean to lay it down as an absolute rule that nothing of a
purely philosophic nature is inherent in the Bible. Indeed, we mentioned
certain such things in the previous chapter as fundamental principles of
Scripture. My point is that such things are very few and extremely simple.
I propose now to demonstrate what these are and how they are
de¢ned. This will be straightforward for us now that we know that it was
not the purpose of the Bible to teach any branch of knowledge. For from
this we can readily infer that it requires nothing of men other than obedience,
and condemns not ignorance but disobedience. Since obedience
to God consists solely in love of our neighbour (for he who loves his
neighbour, with the intention of obeying God, has ful¢lled the Law, as
Paul observes in his Epistle to the Romans, 13.8), it follows that the only
knowledge commended in Scripture is that which everyone needs to
obey God according to this command, that is if, lacking this knowledge,
they must necessarily be disobedient or at least de¢cient in the habit of
obedience. All other philosophical concerns that do not directly lead to this
goal, whether concerned with knowledge of God or of natural things, are
irrelevant toScripture and musttherefore be set aside from revealed religion.
[4] Anyone may now readily see this for himself, as I have said. Nevertheless,
I want to set the whole thing out yet more carefully and explain it
more clearly, since the entire question of what religion is depends on it.
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