Spinoza on the Divinity of Scripture | Prof. Steven Nadler

[Music] [Music] in Rome professor Nutter is the author of numerous articles in many books too many to mention them all the most recent Menasha benissa l the most famous Jew in the world forthcoming in Yale University Press the philosopher the priest and the painter a portrait of the cart and book fold inhale Spinoza's scandalous treaties and the birth of the secular age whose Hebrew translation we are celebrating today censorship we shall begin on Spinoza fool editor Donna Deveny Saloni Xie Tabata idiots for Amy this excellent book provides a fascinating fascinating portrait of Spinoza scandalous theological political treatise which is remarkably relevant to our own day and unfortunately to the situation in Israel in particular before we start I'd like to thank the van Leo Institute and selamat LaVon for this arranging so beautifully this event and so let us give Mother a very welcome [Applause] noza on divinity of Scripture thank you everybody hear me thank you very much it's a real honor to be giving this lecture here tonight and I thank you for coming out for it I'm gonna talk about one of the themes that appears in the book at Spinoza's view on the status of the Hebrew Bible one of Spinoza's more famous influential and to his contemporaries incendiary doctrines concerns the origin and the status of Scripture as this is presented in his scandalous theological political treatise the Bible he argues is not literally authored by God that is the Bible's text was not composed or dictated by some transcendent providential deity endowed with the psychological and moral characteristics required for the kind of providential agency traditionally attributed to the Abrahamic God for Spinoza God is nature and as such God or nature is metaphysically incapable of proclaiming or dictating or commanding much less writing anything as Spinoza puts it scripture is not a book God has sent men from heaven rather than saying quote or go like this whenever I assume a kind of divine tone of voice that means I'm quoting from Spinoza does everybody have a copy of the handout by the way because we'll be referring to some text there rather scripture is a very ordinary mundane document text from a number of authors of various socioeconomic backgrounds writing at different points of time over a long stretch of history and in different historical and political circumstances these texts were passed down through generations in copies after copies after copies finally a selection of these writings made Spinoza insists with some contingency in arbitrariness a selection was put together in the Second Temple period most likely under the editorship of Ezra who was able only partially to synthesize his sources and create a single work of out of them subsequently this imperfectly composed collection was itself subjected to the various changes that naturally creep in when it exits meted over many centuries the Bible then as we have it and as Spinoza's contemporaries had it is thus a work of human literature and he says a rather faulty mutilated corrupted and inconsistent one at that it is a mixed breed bias birth and corrupted by his descent and preservation it is a jumble of text by different hands from different periods and for different audiences Spinoza supplements his theory of the origins of Scripture with an equally deflationary account of its authors the prophets were not especially learning individuals they did not enjoy a high degree of education or intellectual sophistication they certainly were not philosophers or scientists and here Spinoza explicitly departs from Maimonides who insist that the prophets have the same endowment as philosophers but they have something special what this means is that the biblical texts are for the most part not to be read as sources of truth again contrary to Maimonides who says that if the Bible proclaims a proposition that proposition must be true the Bible's authors on Spinoza's account were not physicists or astronomers so there are no truths about nature or the cosmos to be found in their writings joshua apparently did believe that the earth that the Sun revolved around the earth but neither is the Bible the source of metaphysical or even theological truths the prophets often simple naive even philosophically false beliefs about God therefore much of what the Bible says about things including God are false there is however at least one major truth to be gleaned from all of Scripture it's a truth that he says comes through loud and clear in a non mutilated form the ultimate teaching of Scripture he says whether the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Gospels is in fact a rather simple one practice justice and loving-kindness to your fellow human beings that's the message of scripture that's the truth that proclaims of course Spinoza notes there are other equally fundamental principles that follow from this universal declaration for example that God exists that God provides for all that God is omnipotent that in accordance with God's decree things go well with the pious but badly for the wicked that our salvation depends only on God's grace there's a chair over here Spinoza says scripture teaches these things everywhere clearly moreover from these general propositions a number of more particular prescriptive moral precepts naturally follow necessarily follow Scripture implies that we should defend justice aid the poor kill no one covet nothing belonging to another and so on these are also moral truths proclaimed by Scripture that there's more chairs around here people who are that's not part of my lecture this is a I didn't prepare that that basic moral message to love God above all else and to love your neighbor as yourself that moral message and its theological and ethical ramifications this is the point of all of the commandments and the lesson of all of the stories of scripture surviving whole and unadulterated through all the differences of language and all the copies alterations corruptions and scribal errors that have crept into the text over the centuries it is Spinoza insists the message of the Hebrew prophets and it is also in Paul's letters Spinoza writes this I can certainly affirm that I have not noticed concerning moral teachings any error or any alternative reading which would make them obscure or doubtful that's a very odd claim to make but we're gonna leave that alone for now the moral doctrine he says is the clear and universal message of the Bible at least for those who are not prevented from reading it properly by prejudice superstition or the thirst for political power scripture conveys this moral message not only through the visions of the prophets but especially through its portrayal of a particular character named God a character who is wise just and merciful Spinoza allows that there is no expectation that everyone is to come to know God's true attributes God's essential nature an intellectual or exact understanding of God that's for an elite for the first who can follow the demonstrations presented in Spinoza's metaphysical treatise the ethics but it is incumbent upon even the non philosophical masses to obey the Word of God he says and this means believing in God's justice and charity and emulating those traits in your own actions this is quote number 1 on the handout obedience to God consists only in the love of your neighbor the knowledge that God through the prophets is demanded of everyone without exception is nothing but knowledge of His divine justice and loving-kindness in short Spinoza has thoroughly naturalized and even secularized scripture the Bible is a very historical product of human literary endeavor and its overall message is simply to treat our fellow human beings with justice and charity but now we have the question de Spinoza believed if there remains any sense in which it can be said that the Bible is divine certainly not in a sense central to fundamentalist or even traditional versions of the Abrahamic religions which would seem to require a providential even anthropomorphic God as author scripture is not literally divine in its origin or its composition but Spinoza does still want to maintain a non-trivial understanding of the divinity of Scripture one that preserves scriptures distinctness if not its uniqueness as a sacred book we'll come back to that issue about the uniqueness of a sacred book and that distinctiveness he argues lies both in scriptures message and in the particularly effective and effective way that that message is conveyed for Spinoza the divinity of Scripture and in fact the divinity of any work of literature or art is a purely functional and relational property just as being a corkscrew does not require a certain causal origin or being made out of a certain material or possessing a certain physical form but being a corkscrew only requires being suited for performing a certain function that is the function that a corkscrew essentially performs removing a cork from a bottle well so likewise a work of literature or art is divine according to Spinoza's understanding only because it is composed or created in such a way that it serves especially well for having a particular effect upon readers or viewers Spinoza insists first that Scripture is sacred and divine both because it contains that message of God loving kindness and mercy and because it does an especially good job of presenting that message what is the word of God what is that divine that universal divine law that scripture proclaims it's precisely what we have just seen it's a B namely the message that remains unmute elated and uncorrupted throughout the biblical text love your neighbors and treat them with justice and charity this is quote number 2 on the handout from Scripture itself we have perceived its most important themes without any difficulty or ambiguity to love God above all else and to love your neighbor as yourself but the second equally important aspect of scriptures divinity is that perhaps more than any other work of literature scripture is exceptionally good at motivating people to follow that divine message and emulate God's justice and charity in their lives and it has that special feature just because it conveys that divine message so clearly and effectively and movingly in other words the divinity of Scripture lies in the fact that it is above all else and especially morally edifying work of literature Spinoza claims that those who in the right frame of mind read Scripture and it's account of a God who exercises and delights and loving-kindness judgment and righteousness in the world a God who was supremely just and supremely merciful such readers come both to a proper knowledge of God and God's actions and are through scriptures literary portrayal of this exemplary moral character inspired to act with similar justice and charity towards others the thing is however that what is true for Scripture this ability to motivate people to be just and charitable towards others can in principle be true for other works of human literature this is not a point that Spinoza explicitly makes but we'll see that he may concede it in one of his letters so if reading Shakespeare's Tempest or Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn moves you towards justice and charity or freedom Charles Dickens hard times inspires you toward love and charity towards the poor then these works to our divine and sacred the Word of God Spinoza says is not contained in a certain number of books in the letter to Spinoza one of his early correspondence objects that according to Spinoza theological political treatise and this is the quote from the letter from this objector if what you say is true then the Quran too is to be put on a level with the Word of God since the Turks too in obedience to the command of their prophet cultivate those moral virtues about which there is no disagreement of bone Nations now I think Spinoza's correspondent is expecting Spinoza to respond by saying oh well no that can't be I don't mean that but no Spinoza says yeah that's right Spinoza acknowledges the implication but he doesn't regard it as an objection he sees no problem in allowing there to be other true prophets besides those of Hebrew Scripture nor in allowing there to be other books outside the Jew and Christian cannons that are divine and sacred therefore if the reader of a book is moved to devotion then the words on the page are sacred conversely if a work of literature fails to have such an effect on a reader then whatever may be its origins and whoever its author may be it is without value and sanctity he says in a word it is not divine this is quote number three words have a definite meaning only from their use if they should be so organized that according to their usage they move the people reading them to devotion then those words will be sacred so will a book written with the words organized that way but if afterward that usage should be lost so that the words have no meaning or if the book should be completely neglected whether from malice or because men no longer need it then neither the words nor the book will be of any use they will lose their holiness this applies as much to scripture as it does to other human writings quote number four scripture is sacred and its statements divine just as long as it moves men to devotion toward God presumably although Spinoza does not consider this point the failure to move a reader toward justice and charity can derive either from some deficiency in the text or from some deficiency in the reader a work of literature can be well or poorly crafted for achieving the desired moral effect in this way there does seem to be some element of objectivity to the divinity of a text a feature of the work itself we can conceive of a work of literature that is so beautifully and effectively constructed and with such a clear and distinct moral message that under ordinary circumstances it can reasonably be expected to edify and inspire its readers it would be a work in which the Word of God shines through consistent and without any ambiguity through characters and stories calculated to inspire the reader in the right way and this seems to be precisely how Spinoza view Scripture its authors the prophets may not have been philosophers or scientists and so they did not enjoy special access to truths about nature the cosmos or God but Spinoza incest insists they were superior to other human beings in two respects first of all the prophets were endowed by nature and training with an especially strong ethical vision this is quote number five the prophets he said had a heart inclined only to the right and the good the prophets are praised and so greatly commended not for the loftiness an excellence of their understanding but for their piety and constancy of heart he doesn't tell us why the prophets have this moral insight they don't get it from the way in which somebody might become morally virtuous through reading the ethics that is through philosophy but it doesn't tell us what is the explanation for the prophets superb moral character second beyond being morally superior the prophets were gifted with unusually vivid imaginations here he flips Maimonides on his head a bit like Maimonides spine Spinoza believes that the ancient prophets had a more lively imaginative faculty although he rejects Maimonides claim that the prophets also had perfected intellects so essentially Spinoza is saying my mind is is right the prophets had really vivid imaginations with a little bit of a smirk I think when he says that thus the prophets were particularly well suited for moral storytelling for crafting moving and inspiring narratives that convey the proper message the universal law of God their writings reflect these special attributes of their authors by their distinctive power to move readers towards what is right and what is good now it might be tempting given what I've just said to think that for Spinoza the divinity of Scripture is also not just an objective matter of fact but an intrinsic feature of the work and let me explain what I mean it is by that something an intrinsic feature or property is a feature or a property of a thing that it has regardless of its relationship to anything else so the shape of this lectern is an intrinsic feature of the shape of the lectern it doesn't depend upon where the chair is or who's standing before it is a feature that the electron has independently of whatever else is the case in the world the opposite of an intrinsic feature is a relational feature I am the uncle of Sarah not because of anything intrinsic about me but because there is also this person called my my brother and he had a daughter named Sarah so being the uncle of Sarah is not an intrinsic feature of me it's a relational feature I have because of this relationship which I stand to another person so let's keep that distinction in mind as we perceive is it the case that for Spinoza the divinity of Scripture if spin if Scripture is constructed in this really well-suited way does it follow that the divinity of Scripture is an intrinsic feature of the work something that the work has by virtue of its own properties simply a virtue of its an imaginative literary quality the content and the presentation of its message indeed sometimes it seems that Spinoza does regard the divinity of Scripture as an intrinsic qualitative feature of the text look at number 6 quote number 6 of the handout we must establish from Scripture alone that it teaches true moral doctrines for only from this can its divinity be demonstrated that looks like he's saying that all you need to know about the Scriptures divinity is the text itself it's important to note however that no matter objectively well-suited a book might be by its intrinsic features for inspiring justice and charity it can always be misused for example by unscrupulous ecclesiastic authorities in Amsterdam seeking to use the Bible's portrayal of God to manipulate the hopes and fears of ordinary people in order to gain power and influence over them just as a corkscrew can be employed for nefarious purposes like as a weapon so can the Bible and this of course is precisely Spinoza's great fear and concern in the theological political treatise and why he says explicitly that what is called sacred and divine who is what is destined for the practice of piety and religion and it will be sacred only so long as people use it in a religious manner he has seen the way the more orthodox leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church typically exploit the Bible for their own religious and political ends encouraging in their flocks not justice and charity but fear and Prejudice they are misusing the Bible still in Spinoza's mind there may be no work of literature better suited by its own qualitative character for inspiring justice and charity than the writings of the biblical prophets and yet in the end for Spinoza the divinity of Scripture is not an intrinsic feature of the text it's not something that is a function of the text objective character alone rather divinity must be primarily a relative perhaps even a subjective affair no matter how well composed a text may be for its moral purpose no matter how clearly and imaginatively it proclaims the Word of God if it fails actually to have the proper edifying effect on its readers then it is not divine let me explain this by bringing in another example you signed up for a philosophy lecture tonight so we're gonna introduce all these distinctions as a distinction within this category of relative properties something can have a relative property in two senses first of all it can have a particular quality as a bear capacity or power because of both its own features and because of the way other things are constituted so salt for example has the property soluble in water because of the chemical constitution of salt and the chemical constitution of water even if salt never gets dissolved in water never actually dissolves in water it has this power but it's a relative power a relative capacity which it has all not just because it's composed the way it is but also because of something else the way water is composed a corkscrew for some reason I really think cork screws do a good job here a cork screw has the wine bottle opening quality both because of its own structure and the nature of cork bottle stoppers according to and even if a cork screw is never used to open a bottle it has that power that relative power according to this sense the Bible would have the property morally edifying readers that's the property and thus the quality Devine both because of its intrinsic literary features and the nature of human beings generally in this sense the Bible would be divine even if it never actually has a morally edifying effect on any person just as long as it has the capacity to edify people by virtue of both its literary features and the natural constitution of the human mind now Spinoza says in the quote we just looked at that if the words of a text are so organized that according to their usage they move the people reading them to devotion then those words will be sacred and this might seem to allow for divinity in this relative sense I just mentioned as a bear capacity or power however I do not think Spinoza means that the mere capacity or potential or power of a work by virtue of both its own intrinsic qualities and human nature it's its power to inspire justice and charity and readers I don't think he means that that alone is sufficient for the divinity of the work in light of Spinoza's claim that scripture is sacred and its statements divine just as long as it moves meant of devotion toward God then although the intrinsic features of some text may be given human nature generally superbly conducive to moving people toward devotion if in the end that text fails to achieve that end if no one is ever actually so moved then the work is not divine perhaps a more accurate way to put it it as follows if a certain text actually moves a person toward justice and charity then the text is divine or sacred for that person if the same text does not move a different person toward justice and charity then the text is not divine or sacred for that person Spinoza could not be more clear okay if that's you should never say that about Spinoza he couldn't be more clear because whatever you're in Spinoza he could always be more clear but Spinoza seems relatively clear not just about the relativity but also the subjectivity of the divinity of Scripture or of any text when he says and this is quote number 7 nothing is sacred or profane or impure in itself outside the mind but only in relation to the mind just as according to Spinoza things are good or bad never in themselves but only insofar as they bring about joy or sadness in a person he's very clear throughout his entire philosophical works nothing in nature is good or bad in itself things are good if they bring joy and pleasure to a person things are bad if they bring sadness and pain well similarly nothing is sacred or divine except insofar as it has a certain moral effect upon a person of course whether or not a text does have that effect on a person is an objective matter of fact scripture either does or does not move a person to justice and charity and its success in doing so is not determined simply by that person wanting it to do so in this respect the subjectivism is mitigated somewhat it's not an extreme subjectivism whereby a text is sacred if you want it to be sacred or if you think it's sacred it's not that kind of subjectivism still unless scripture or any writing has the requisite effect in the mind of a reader it is not sacred or divine for that person Spinoza's account of the divinity of Scripture raises some really interesting philosophical questions as I mentioned in Spinoza's view while any work of human literature might satisfy the criteria for being divine there may be no work of literature better suited by its own qualitative features for inspiring justice and charity than the collected writings of the biblical prophets and yet and here's my first question might it not be possible for a work of fiction that is not scripture to be more divine than scripture if the divinity of a work of literature is a function of its power actually to move people to justice and charity it is certainly conceivable that some novel might be even more effective than Scripture in doing this in principle that is that is according to Spinoza's principles there is no reason why this could not be the case despite the fact that in Spinoza's view the authors of Scripture were of the highest ethical character and especially gifted in terms of their imaginations and their narrative skills that is there appears to be no reason why an author might not come along who is both just as morally upright as the Hebrew prophets and even more talented as a motivational storyteller with the result that her novel is superbly effective in inspiring its readers to treat their fellow human beings with loving kindness now you might raise the following objection to the scenario I just described let's assume that the sorry let's assume that the author of this allegedly divine novel is a devoted secularist and thus has included no God character in her work so now the objection runs if this novel makes no mention whatsoever of God or of any providential deity if there's no character here who from a devout who from a supernatural or at least supernal role is a model of mercy loving-kindness and justice and charity and who commands us to act in certain ways if there's no such character then how could it possibly be the case that this novel motivates the reader to obedience to God's law after all if the work lacks any depiction of a divine lawgiver how can a reader be moved by it to obey that divinity and its laws however I do not see why the presence of God as a character and a work of literature should be a necessary condition for that work to be divine in Spinoza sense bear in mind that for Spinoza obedience to God's law strictly speaking is nothing more than behavior that intentionally embodies justice and charity towards one's fellow human beings and this would not it seems to me require that one be presented with a portrayal of God as a personal agent who acts in a certain way and commands certain things the right story with the right characters could certainly do the work even if there's no God character in that novel here's my second question an equally interesting but perhaps more difficult difficult question is whether a work of literature composed let's say by an author who does not possess those moral virtues that Spinoza says were exemplified by the prophets imagine an author's book could it still be divine even if its contents are morally abhorrent there was a novel that came out in the United States in 1980s called American Psycho do you notice novel it's truly a disgusting piece of literature and it's not it's nothing but crass violence drug use murder mayhem in New York City in the 1980s there are no redeeming characters in this book can a work of fiction be at the same time both morally degenerate in its story full of lust murder betrayal with no morally redeeming characters but unfailingly morally edifying in its effect upon its readers perhaps the horrific actions depicted in the work so frighten or shame or repel readers that they are thereby moved to act always in the most morally righteous ways and thus obey God's law maybe the work is revelatory of the darkest features of human nature that need to be restrained and no one who reads this novel fails to be properly edified contrary to the author's malicious intentions and thence forth the readers will always act with the best motives in accordance with God's commandments it's hard to believe that Spinoza would regard such a work as divine but it may be difficult for him to block the conclusion all right let me conclude with a final remark of what exactly it means to be morally edified by scripture to be moved by the text to obey God's law to bei God's law to love God and one's neighbors and here let me distinguish between Scripture between Spinoza's two major philosophical treatises and their respective purposes and acknowledge that there are for Spinoza two paths and two paths towards piety and virtue or at least towards piety towards pious and virtuous behavior if we can find ourselves still to the theological political treatise we apply it we are provided with a fairly general but familiar set of moral prescriptions that Spinoza believes ordinary people are expected to derive from their reading of Scripture and to obey if they are if they accept the works fundamental theological teachings as we've seen the theological principles he has in mind are that God exists that God is omnipotent that God provides for the virtuous and so on the remaining moral precepts we also saw are to defend justice to a the poor to kill no one to covet nothing and so a person who reads Scripture will get that message and will be moved to to exemplify those virtues in their own actions and let me add here that the operative word is obey the point of scriptures narrative is not to convey true knowledge of God but to is simply instilled belief in God's moral attributes and thereby inspire obedience to God's commandments in that sense what scripture proclaims from Spinoza's perspective is false because for Spinoza God doesn't have any moral attributes nature just is it's neither good nor bad and yet these stories of Scripture that portray God is a moral agent are highly effective in moving readers in the proper way not very unlike Plato's moral line by contrast the impetus toward ethical behavior toward justice and charity in the ethics is not obedience inspired by fictitious stories but knowledge and understanding more precisely in the ethics virtuous action on the part of the rational and free person results not from imaginative beliefs about the psychology and ethical character of a God who acts as a moral agent but rather from knowledge of God's true nature that is knowledge of nature itself Spinoza's philosophically astute free person knows that the minds true virtue is understanding and intellectual achievement whereby one perceives one's place in nature and the necessity of all things a person who reaches this level of intellectual achievement will know precisely why one should treat other human beings with justice love and charity namely because it's in your own best interest to do so both the theological pollute so in that case you're not imitating somebody else you're acting from knowledge both the theological political treatise and the ethics are in agreement that the supreme moral achievement is to love God and to love one's neighbors and to treat fellow human beings with justice and charity but there's an important difference in the ways in which the two works describe what all this means and how one is supposed to be at how it's supposed to be achieved according to the theological political treatise the moral message is grasped by the masses in an imaginative way through the inspiring stories of Scripture with the literary character God modeling good moral behavior and the love of God tantamount to obeying God's commandments and imitating God's portray behavior in one's own actions in the ethics by contrast the intellectual love of God is simply the knowledge of nature since God and nature are one in the same thing and while the free persons goal is likewise to improve the lives of others forgive their trespasses the free person knows that what this means is that she is to act in such a way that those other people also become free and rationally virtuous moreover the motivation for such moral activity in the free person is not obedience to some divine lawgiver an imitation of his actions but rather rational self-interest the free and rationally virtuous person knows what virtue really requires they know for that is that it is in their own best interest to be surrounded by other free and rationally virtuous individuals because they will be more useful to him in their striving for wellbeing in the life of rational virtue so like what Socrates a lot like with Socrates says in the apology remembered Socrates is on trial because he's accused of corrupting his fellow citizens and he says well what do you think I'm an idiot why would I want to live among corrupted fellow citizens I have to live with these people my goal in fact is to improve them because only then will I myself be able to practice virtue in the proper way to the extent that Spinoza's ethics shows us the way toward a better life and virtuous action that is well grounded in knowledge and not the passions it may be just as effective as the Bible in moving certain people to act justly and charitably toward others by Spinoza's own criteria then the ethics his ethics is for them a divine and sacred work however sometimes a few good fictional stories are more effective than a host of rigorously demonstrated philosophical principles thank you and we have some time for questions thank you I just want to make sure I understand yours and Spinoza's argument and if we assume that everyone considered the scripture to be sacred and divine then empirically we would have a just and charitable Society and if we don't have a just and charitable Society that might mean either that everyone doesn't agree that it's sacred and divine or some people don't read it so can I just modify the way you put your question you said everyone considers its sacred in divine that would make it subjective in the sense it's not subjective it's not that everybody has to consider a sacred and divine it's just that everybody has to be moved towards justice and charity by the book let's say you think it's sacred divine but it doesn't move you to justice and charity then it's not sacred and divine just baby or somebody anybody so let me rephrase your question if I may if scripture moves actually moves everybody - Justin Herald behavior then it is divine and sacred for everybody not just therefore for that society scripture is not divine or everyone in this society doesn't think that it's divine well there you go again with the subjective thing it's not it's not that they just failed to think it's divine they might so let's take your scenario scripture fails to move everybody in the society right to justice and charity therefore scripture is not sacred divine in that society in that but let's say everybody thinks this group is divine that's not going to make it divine is it it's one thing doesn't move them exactly it's one thing to merely cool it's one thing to merely think that the book is divine it's another thing for it to actually move you well so does that help yes yeah yeah and that's what I tried to get across when I said there's two senses in which it's subjective the way you described it made it subjective in a radical sense if you think it's beautiful it's beautiful if you think it's divine then it's divine that is not Spinoza's view moreover well so and there is no such thing as something being absolutely correct that's why it's mere relatively only relatively divine is it possible for a person to be moved to justice and charity by scripture and yet not think that it's divine that seems unlikely because if you if you're feeling morally edified by work with literature it's hard to imagine that you're not aware that this that the work is having that effect upon you so you might think it's divine and it's not divine but if it is divine you'll think it's divine does that make sense if it's divine it has the effect upon you you will know it has that effect upon you therefore you'll know it's divine but just because you think it's divine it doesn't follow that it has that effect upon you you have a false belief but in terms of outcomes what's really important is that it society is best and charitable if it reaches its goal exactly yes I'm there you want me to call people I will answer questions for the okay okay hi yes I read your biography and I enjoyed it very much thank you I did not read the ethics cuz I felt like I would probably need to read it with some some guide or something but at any rate not exactly a lightweight no but I do know from having read about Spinoza in encyclopedias and so on that one of his tenants was the idea of the world unfolding through a principle of nature of rather necessity excuse me necessity things happen because they must happen for something now that's when we think about immorality the first thing comes to mind World War two ok World War two and I recently came upon a quote attributed to Churchill who thought that World War two was an unnecessary war he called it that just wondered what you think Spinoza might have thought about calling it an unnecessary war it seems to be a kind of in one sense whatever happens happens by virtue of the invariably causally determinative laws of nature physical powers emptiness void nature hates a void and that sort of thing so ok whatever is is and whatever happens necessarily had to happen not just in the physical world but also in the world of our mental lives that human beings and their passions their loves their hates their desires their beliefs it's as much law governed and causally determined as billiard balls on a table in rocks rolling down hills so in that sense it cannot be said that any war is unnecessary that is not causally determined you should probably give other people a chance with the mic but let me just finish answering your question the there's another sense in which you could say it wasn't necessary in the sense that had other things gone differently the war wouldn't have happened but of course for Spinoza those other things couldn't have gone differently because they too were necessitated by antecedent causes so I'm afraid that for Spinoza to say that a war wasn't necessary is more wishful thinking than an insight into how things could have been different what what do you think Spinoza relationship to people that think about morality and charity but don't think that the Scriptures are defined so when you say they think about morality and charity are their beliefs about more morality and charity true justify beliefs do they have knowledge of these things or do they just kind of have these imaginative ideas well the idea of morality doesn't necessarily come from Scripture for many people and so those people well many people that don't think the Scriptures are divine how do they think they think that the sentence by Hillel that don't do to others what you don't like to be done to yourself and love thy neighbor like yourself is the basis of morality you know maybe don't need the scriptures to have this notion that's absolutely right and that's that's a part of my argument let's say in fact that there's there's three ways of becoming morally virtuous one way is to read Scripture and be inspired by its stories and for you then scriptures divine here's a second way you read Spinoza's ethics you know what true virtue and freedom and the life of rational morality consistent and through this deep intellectual understanding of yourself of nature of the cosmos you come to see why it is in your own best interest to treat other people with justice and charity you have deep philosophical insight that's the second path here's a third path and this may be what most people who don't regard Scripture as divine would take something has moved there and let's assume on the basis of your question that they really have true beliefs about justice and charity and that they practice practice these in their lives but they don't do it because they've read Spinoza they don't do it because they've been moved by scripture they do it because they read Shakespeare or they read Kant or they read John Stuart Mill's treatise on utilitarianism or let's take David Humes theory they are moved by a feeling of sympathy with other human beings to treat human beings in the same way that people who read the Bible are moved to treat other human beings that seems to me all consistent with Spinoza's view here as long as they really do act justly and charitably and that their beliefs about these things our true beliefs can you wait for the mic Spinoza experienced some very severe cruelty from his Jewish community that held to the divinity of the Scriptures what did he what would he say to that they didn't read the Scriptures properly well if what they meant by the divinity of Scripture is that it was literally authored by a supernatural being endowed with certain psychological and moral characteristics then they have a superstitious belief of Scripture however you can have those false beliefs about God and still be morally moved in the proper way and the fact that people who most people who are moved by Scripture towards moral behavior have false beliefs about God they think of God in an anthropomorphic way there's nothing wrong with that in fact Spinoza says that what he calls obedience to God requires a set of beliefs and quite a few of the beliefs of Spinoza lays out that God exists that God rewards the virtuous and punishes the wicked these beliefs are essential for obeying God's law in other words you it might be that you can have various false and superstitious beliefs about God those beliefs will motivate you to obey God's law and be just in charitable that's perfectly fine because most people can't be philosophers and it's important that they be just and charitable so let them be just and charitable through those false beliefs it's well it's not important before I think it is but yeah right you don't have to be a philosopher to be a good person yeah you don't have to be a philosopher to be a good person yes there there are many ways of becoming moral now to go back to the premise behind your question I think Spinoza regarded the leaders of the Amsterdam Jewish community I'm not convinced that they really disagreed with Spinoza on a lot of the things he has to say but there were there was I think there were socially there's a social and political dimension to the Karem but it's I think it's also quite internal to that community on these a lot of the members of the Portuguese Jewish community at that time worse were refugees or descendants of refugees from Spain and Portugal from Catholic backgrounds and they were still being reintegrated into Judaism and so the Karem was used in Amsterdam at the time to help unify and create a normative Jewish community and you have somebody like Spinoza saying the kinds of things that we were saying you can't have that so I don't want to be the one to see my audience by causing Thanks so it's slightly more historical question so these things are really extraordinary and an astonishing considered that they were readin when they were reading only that then you take him to account that at the very same time very similar things we're also written by hopes yes so I know the theory the samus Hobbs the English philosopher right and I imagine it's a very not original question that you get sometimes but and I know there are theories about whether they read each other or whether they both were relying on previous sources but still the similarities are really striking and the fact that they were written in a very similar anti-clerical contact so what do you make of these because most people today think of him as a fusty conservative somebody who'll defend the the absolute right of kings and that sounds very reactionary in fact Hobbes was a radical and when he read Spinoza's treatise he says oh my god I would never write such a thing but I think he thought a lot of it so Hobbs also denied that the that well Hobbes claimed that Moses couldn't have written all of the passage the Bible because Moses couldn't have written about his own death but then even Ezra said similar things as well I think that a lot of what Spinoza says about politics in the ethics and in the theological political treatise only came to him in the latter 1660s when latin and dutch editions of Hobbes's works are available so I think there was quite an important influence of Hobbes on Spinoza but I think his views about the Bible I think those predate his reading reading of Hobbes I think because when so he was excommunicated in 1656 he couldn't have read Hobbes yet because he didn't read English we know that in 1658 just two years after the after the harem some visitors to Amsterdam reported to the Inquisition that they met this man named Spinoza and Spinoza says he was kicked out of the Jewish community for saying that God exists only philosophically the Bible is that the law is not true and that the soul dies with the body so we know that right around the time of the harem we have good reasons for thinking that he was saying just the kinds of things that will later appear in his treatises so I think it's a really great question Hobbes influenced Spinoza but where and how much weight we have to wait for the microphone and then you get the next question today as though Spinoza really believed the charity is the supreme value but I think even the way you described it the ethics which is directed towards philosophers does not pretend it is such charity and ethics is very tangential it's not it doesn't it's not a central part of their ethics even as you presented it people should realize that it's in their best interest so it's it serves a purpose it's not sort of a supreme value in itself I think the way I understand it ethics was directed towards philosophers and the treatise was just directed towards ordinary people and he wanted them to take this message out of the Bible so let me expire I didn't mean giving money giving charity in that sense and I don't think that's what Spinoza means in the ethics or the theologically truth what charity means is Caritas working to improve the life of another person but I think you're absolutely right it's not the supreme value it's something you do to help move you towards the supreme value which is freedom virtue happiness a beatitude and activity so did that help clarify that my question basically is is it really the charity everything anyway you present it a major part of the ethics yes I think it is because in part four of the ethics so he has a very egoistic theory of human motivation whatever you do you do because you are moved for by self-preservation every there's no altruistically motivated action there are altruistic behaviors but it's always motivated by the pursuit of your own maintaining and increasing your own power or activity and in a series of propositions in part four there's I think these are very important propositions he actually introduces how we ought to treat other human beings we ought to treat them in ways so that we act and we act so that their lives are improved because it's in our own best interest to do so that's I think his discussion of charity that's what he means by charity they're acting charitably towards others helping them achieve lives that are flourishing lives no no but he's demonstrating that it is in your own best interest now you might disagree that the demonstrations fail I mean that's a legitimate point but oh is that what you're asking yeah well yeah so I'll give you a wishy-washy answer yes and no there there are two kinds there are two ways in which people can act charitably towards others one way is the way in which it's presented in the ethics you act terribly towards others you help improve their lives because you know with certainty it's in your own best interest in the theological political treatise you will act that way towards others not because you're aware it's in your own best interest to do so but because you're imitating the chair the the behavior of this moral paradigm this moral paradigm it sounds like he assumes that Spinoza assumes that the the God of the Bible is just and fair and merciful yeah there's a lot of stories or he's not just a kind and merciful does that mean that it's only divine in the sense that it motivates people to do things that Spinoza wants it to demote it to be motivated to do right so you could put the following question to Spinoza when God acts and morally would have seen to be morally reprehensible ways is God doing that out of a sense of charity injustice and loving kindness to scare us or to warn us or is that that'd be one way of explaining away those sorts of passages the other way of explaining them away would be to say that well you know the prophets not being learned theologians had false beliefs about God and sometimes those get expressed in these depictions of God's behavior that don't really seem consistent but you know this really does seem to be a challenge to Spinoza's claim that Toni Grafton once said to me I said well okay imagine a Bible that depicts God in awesomely fearful and frightening ways and Grafton said yeah that's Calvin's Bible so I think it really is hard to to see how Spinoza can say that just maybe to put the question of the two Spinoza's in a different way did really Spinoza think that the Bible is really moral when you read it at face value there are many chapters I would argue even the majority of the chapters from Spinoza's point of view are not so moral and he has so many has some comments on this in the tattoos so the idea to portray the Bible as moral and charitable is basically because of political reasons not really because he thought that the text itself conveys moral ideas so it's it's more political than you know really essential in that sense because most of the chapters that you read in the Bible if you look at them from I would say a moral purity ball point of view basically immoral don't chapter after chapter and I so used to make some comments about this you know along the treatise any place I think this is the I would say a certain layer so are you suggesting that he's being disingenuous when he says because the whole purpose of this treatise is political and educational and he wants to use it as a vehicle for educating in his multitude and to do this is to convince them that this is a moral book though he's not himself convinced that it's really oh because it's not really a moral book from his point of view we the stories about Abraham for example most of their mother mother well it's not so much that every character his claim is not that every character in the Bible is a moral character and it's not the case that every story is on its face a moral story but rather that the stories themselves are morally edifying I think your your reading is best captured going back to this question that God because it's only supposed to be one morally paradigmatic character at least as I read Spinoza and that's God yes but I'm not sure that Spinoza thought that the God as a character of the Bible is more okay because in most cases is not more living in the Bible as a character no I think so that's I mean I think that's a legitimate answer to this question that well you know they didn't mean it when you say yes but the Yeti it was extremely important for him to portray him as moral because of political reasons number four is sacred song as into the ocean where is God since God is no why shouldn't we understand moving ocean to God like scientific but is good if I think underst in an ideal world yes but I think Spinoza believes that most people were they I think it's clear that he believes that were most people not to have those superstitious beliefs about God as a moral agent they would not be moved to obey God's law because he lays out those seven that seven tenets of the universal religion he says that those are not just sufficient for obeying God's law but necessary and so you need you need this devotion towards God as the kind of guy that you find people addressing with reverential awe and so on you know it would be great if everybody could express devotion to God in the way in which the philosopher and the ethics express his devotion to God but I think at a certain point even you know even the the in the political treatise he says I'm writing this for human beings not as we want them to be but as as they are and I think there's a sense in which the the theological political tree is also as a concession to human nature in that sense look most people aren't going to be philosophers they're gonna get they're gonna be inspired and even if he doesn't go back to your point even if he doesn't really believe that God is a consistently moral character I think he does believe that the Bible is gonna be the best thing we have for inspiring justice and charity among his readers okay can you shout okay shout hi and my question is it seems clear that you think and I think you know it does thing is as well that not everyone can be philosophers and that the best thing to do is to understand God truly and then to understand yourself truly then you will be moral but really moral to some extent and I'm wondering if you take that conclusion of Spinoza seriously enough to say something like well maybe wasn't possible 400 years ago maybe it is now have you been following politics in the United States um I am but I'm I want to keep optimistic okay and to try to understand are we moving forward anyway or is it still a good point well taken it just seems to be a particularly shining example right now no I you know if you look at it the world there seems to be as much stupidity and superstition operating as there was in the seventies maybe not as much but I have a different nature but you know we could be hopeful that we've made some kind of progress towards philosophical lives but the empirical evidence right so then then the question is whether the empirical evidence suggests that Spinoza was wrong or that we are wrong in interpreting him a way wrong about what is the empirical evidence say that you know it was wrong in saying how we frame it is it still the case that most people cannot really move forward to philosophic understanding of the world or did we not take he knows a serious enough and finding a way he might suggest that to help people or help more people or something like that because I do think more people today are educated moral and better than they are in the 17th century to some extent they're certainly better educated in a formalistic sense but I still think that remember the last line of the ethics all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare and by all things excellent he means achieving this this state of intellectual excellence this condition of rational virtue and I think it's no less true now than it was then that it's a difficult and rare condition to achieve you know students go to university but the number of humanities majors is declining because they're going to university and they're they're told they should go to university because that's the path to a career even Obama at one point couple years ago in his speech said you know don't major in our history don't don't major in a humanities discipline we need engineers and scientists so people are getting more educated but I don't see that we live in a more philosophically astute world now but that's just I've got a I've got a really bleak perspective these days maybe he's still young to be optimistic but I think that's one of our challenges [Music]

Channel: The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute - מכון ון ליר בירושלים

Views: 7,768

Keywords: מכון ון ליר, Van Leer Institute, Spinoza, Prof. Steven Nadler, Steven Nadler, Dr. Noa Naaman Zauderer

Id: sqNz8dDb4kU

Length: 72min 43sec (4363 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 15 2018