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Hi All, Spinoza has shown in the previous chapter (Ch. 3 - The Vocation of the Hebrews) that any idea of a particular people, whether Jewish or otherwise, being chosen by God..:
======= TPT03-P33: ...yet many people assume that the Mosaic Law expressed in Hebrew Scripture was "given by God" to the Hebrews supernaturally and so they imagine it as "Divine Law". So, to what might the term Divine Law refer? In the current chapter (Ch. 4 - Of The Divine Law), Spinoza examines more closely the nature of Divine Law vs. Human Law and shows that the Mosaic Law is more properly considered as a human law which served to render the Hebrew nation, and the lives of the people living under the laws of that nation, secure. He will show that natural Divine Law is universal or common to all men and does not depend on the truth of any historical narrative such as Hebrew Scripture. He starts by discussing law in the abstract sense:
====== TPT04-P01 [my CAPS -TNeff]:
A law which depends on NATURAL NECESSITY is one which necessarily follows
from the nature, or from the definition of the thing in question;
a law which depends on HUMAN DECREE, and which is more correctly called an
ordinance, is one which men have laid down for themselves and others in
order to live more safely or conveniently, or from some similar reason. And then he points out that even though...:
====== TPT04-P02: ...he still asserts that a law may be said to depend on HUMAN DECREE because man is a part of the power of nature. However, since the human mind cannot attain to absolute knowledge of the infinite chain of causes or of the concatenation of things as determined by UNIVERSAL NATURAL LAWS, these HUMAN LAWS are generally formed from a consideration of things as if they are contingent (that is, as they are known through the Imagination as explained in the Ethics) rather than necessary (as known only through Reason and Intuition). And so he moves on to a more common definition of law:
====== TPT04-P05: ...and, with this, he distinguishes two different PLANS OF LIVING or LAWS based on the object involved:
====== TPT04-P07-10:
By HUMAN LAW I mean a plan of living which serves only to render life
and the state secure.
By DIVINE LAW I mean that which only regards the HIGHEST GOOD, in other
words, the true knowledge of God and love. Spinoza now goes into some detail about the nature of the HIGHEST GOOD with which DIVINE LAW is concerned, showing that it involves perfecting the Intellect so as to come to the Knowledge of God. And, since without God nothing can exist or be conceived, our knowledge of natural phenomena must also involve and express the conception of God..:
====== TPT04-P11-13:
Hither, then, our HIGHEST GOOD and our highest blessedness aim - namely,
to the knowledge and love of God; therefore the means demanded by this aim
of all human actions, that is, by God in so far as the idea of him is in us,
may be called the COMMANDS OF GOD, because they proceed, as it were, from
God Himself, inasmuch as He exists in our minds, and THE PLAN OF LIFE which
has regard to this aim may be fitly called the LAW OF GOD [or DIVINE LAW as
defined above --TNeff].
The nature of the means, and the PLAN OF LIFE which this aim demands,
how the foundations of the best states follow its lines, and how men's life
is conducted, are questions pertaining to general ethics. Here I only
proceed to treat of the Divine law in a particular application. ...and from this he points out that...:
====== TPT04-P15-21:
1. That it is universal or common to all men, for we have deduced it from
universal human nature.
2. That it does not depend on the truth of any historical narrative...
3. We see that this natural Divine law does not demand the performance of
ceremonies...
4. Lastly, we see that the highest reward of the Divine law is the law
itself, namely, to know God and to love Him of our free choice, and with an
undivided and fruitful spirit; while its penalty is the absence of these
things, and being in bondage to the flesh - that is, having an inconstant
and wavering spirit. Now, keeping in mind that Spinoza's aim in this treatise is to help those Philosophers who are hindered in their thinking by the belief that Reason is a mere handmaid to Theology and that therefore Scriptures must be considered superior to Reason, he goes on to inquire...:
====== TPT04-P23-27:
2. What is the teaching of Holy Writ concerning this natural light of reason
and natural law?
3. With what objects were ceremonies formerly instituted?
4. Lastly, what is the good gained by knowing the sacred histories and
believing them?
Of the first two I will treat in this chapter, of the remaining two in
the following one. As for the first point, he states that:
====== TPT04-P28:
Our conclusion about the first is easily deduced from the nature of
God's will, which is only distinguished from His understanding in relation
to our intellect - that is, the will and the understanding of God are in
reality one and the same, and are only distinguished in relation to our
thoughts which we form concerning God's understanding.... He then goes on to give a few examples to illustrate his meaning. Basically he shows that man's thoughts about such things as "will" and "understanding" do not at all apply to God but rather generally reflect man's own confused imagination of things. Spinoza shows in the Ethics that all things follow necessarily from God's Nature and cannot actually be other than they are and so the ideas which we have of "free will" for instance are merely confused ideas involving our own particular imagination. So, Adam might imagine that God expressed the wish that he not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil but he (Adam) also imagined that he was free to choose to go against God's will in a manner similar to the way a parent might express to a child the parent's wish that the child behave in a particular way while the child believes that he may freely choose to do otherwise. However, if we truly Understand God's nature and the Necessity by which all things exist and operate (as proved by Reason in Spinoza's Ethics) then we will see that God does not think about things like we do in order to understand them and then do things based on his understanding. Nor does God do one thing rather than another based on some whim (that is, by some act of free will). And so, contrary to what our Imagination leads us to believe, God's Understanding and God's Will are one and the same expression of Eternal and Necessary Truth which cannot be other than it is. He goes on to write:
====== TPT04-P30: Spinoza again mentions Christ as differing from all the other persons represented in scriptures. As he wrote earlier (in chapter 1), he believes that Christ knew God (as Spinoza defines God, not "God" as represented in scriptures) directly by Intuition (the Third Kind of Knowledge which Spinoza defines and explains in the Ethics), rather than by Imagination (the First Kind of Knowledge) as did Moses and all the others. And so, Christ perceived the Laws of God directly as the Eternal Necessity of God's nature by which all things are determined to exist and operate in a given, fixed, and definite manner. Spinoza wrote:
====== TPT04-P30-31:
Christ, then, perceived (truly and adequately) what was revealed, and if
He ever proclaimed such revelations as laws, He did so because of the
ignorance and obstinacy of the people, acting in this respect the part of
God; inasmuch as He accommodated Himself to the comprehension of the people,
and though He spoke somewhat more clearly than the other prophets, yet He
taught what was revealed obscurely, and generally through parables,
especially when He was speaking to those to whom it was not yet given to
understand the kingdom of heaven. (See Matt. xiii:10, &c.) To those to whom
it was given to understand the mysteries of heaven, He doubtless taught His
doctrines as eternal truths, and did not lay them down as laws, thus freeing
the minds of His hearers from the bondage of that law which He further
confirmed and established.... Spinoza closes his inquiry on the first point with:
====== TPT04-P31: As for the second point of inquiry; "What is the teaching of Holy Writ concerning this natural light of reason and natural law?", Spinoza draws most of his examples from the ideas expressed by Solomon which clearly commend to us Wisdom and Understanding. He summarizes his conclusion on this point with:
====== TPT04-P34: In the next chapter (Ch. 5 - Of the Ceremonial Law) Spinoza will address the remaining points from the list above:
====== TPT04-P23-27:
4. Lastly, what is the good gained by knowing the sacred histories and
believing them? Best Regards, Terry |
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