BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Faith and philosophy
does not love, does not know God; for God is love’. From this it follows that we
can only make the judgement whether someone is faithful or unfaithful
from his works. If his works are good, he is one of the ‘faithful’, even if
he di¡ers from the other ‘faithful’ in matters of belief. On the other hand, if
his works are bad, he is unfaithful, even if he agrees with the wording of what
they believe. For if obedience is met with, faith is necessarily found, but faith
without works is dead.
The same John also teaches this explicitly in verse 13 of the same chapter: ‘By
this’, he says,‘we know that we abide in Him and He abides in us, because He has
given us of His own spirit’, namely love. For he had already stated that God is 176
love, hence he concludes (from the principles he had already accepted) that
anyone who has love, truly has the spirit of God. He even concludes, because no
one has seen God, that no one recognises God or is aware of him other than
through love of his neighbour, and hence that the only attribute of God that
anyone can know is this love, so far as we share in it. If these arguments are not
decisive, they nevertheless explain John’s meaning clearly enough, but chapter 2,
verses 3 and 4, of the same Epistle explain it still more clearly, where he tells us in
explicit terms what we intend to say here.‘And by this’, he a⁄rms,‘we are sure
that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says, I know him, and
does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.’ From
this it likewise follows, that the true antichrists are those who persecute honest
men and lovers of justice because they di¡er from them in doctrine and do not
adhere to the same tenets of belief as themselves. For we know that those who
love justice and charity are faithful by this measure alone, and he who persecutes
the faithful is an antichrist.
[8] (3) It follows, ¢nally, that faith requires not so much true as pious dogmas,
that is, such tenets as move the mind to obedience, even though many of these
may not have a shadow of truth in them. What matters is that the person who
embraces them does not realize that they are false ^ otherwise, he is necessarily
in revolt against [true piety]: for how can anyone eager to love justice and obey
God adore as divine what that person knows to be alien to the divine nature
People may indeed err in their simplicity of heart, but the Bible does not condemn
ignorance, only wilful disobedience, as we have already shown. Indeed,
this necessarily follows from the only possible de¢nition of faith itself, all parts of
which must be derived from its universal foundation which we have already laid
out and from the sole intent of the whole of the Bible, unless we are willing to
contaminate it with our own opinions.This de¢nition does not expressly require
dogmas that are true but only such as are necessary for inculcating obedience, i.e.
those that con¢rm the mind in love towards our neighbour, by means of which
alone each person is in God (to use John’s language) and God is in each person.
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