BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
182 indeed true that Scripture must be explained by Scripture, so long as we
are only deriving the sense of the passages and the meaning of the prophets,
but after we have arrived at the true sense, we must necessarily use
our judgment and reason before giving assent to it. If reason must be
entirely subject to Scripture despite its protests against it, I askwhether we
should do this in accordance with reason or, like blind men, without reason.
If the latter, then we are certainly acting stupidly and without any
judgment. But what of the former We are in that case accepting Scripture
solely at the command of reason, and therefore we would not accept it
where it is in con£ict with reason. I also ask, who can accept anything with
his mind if his reason protests against it For what is it to reject something
with your mind but a protest of reason
Assuredly, I am utterly amazed that men should want to subject reason,
the greatest gift and the divine light, to ancient words which may well have
been adulterated with malicious intent. I am amazed that it should not be
thought a crime to speak disparagingly of the mind, the true text of God’s
word, and to proclaim it corrupt, blind and depraved, while deeming it the
highest o¡ence to think such things of the mere letter and image of God’s
word.They consider it pious not to trust their reason and their own judgment
and deem it impious to have doubts concerning the reliability of
those who have handed down the sacred books to us.This is plain stupidity,
not piety. But I ask, why does the use of reason worry them What are
they afraid of Can religion and faith not be defended, unless we make
ourselves ignorant of everything and reason is totally dispensed with If
they believe that, then surely such people fear Scripture more than they
trust it. Religion and piety should not wish to have reason for a servant nor
should reason wish to have religion for a servant. Both should be able to
rule their own realms in the greatest harmony. I will explain this directly,
but I want ¢rst to examine the rule of this rabbi [i.e., R. Al-Fakhar].
[4] As we said, he wants us to be bound to accept as true everything that
Scripture a⁄rms and reject as false everything Scripture denies, and he
holds that the Bible never a⁄rms or denies in explicit terms anything
contrary to what it a⁄rms or denies in another passage.Yet everyone must
see how very rash these two positions are. I will omit here what he did
not remark, that Scripture consists of a variety of di¡erent books, of
di¡erent periods and for di¡erent men, and compiled by a variety of
authors; I will also pass over the point that he makes these assertions on
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