Spinoza

“Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth.”  (Baruch Spinoza, 1632--1677)

I don’t much talk about him with friends or family. I would just bore them. But here in the obscurity of this blog, I can write about Spinoza, a philosopher who fascinates me.

With the expulsion of Jews from Portugal, Spinoza’s family settled in the comparatively welcoming city of Amsterdam. There they became moderately successful merchants.  Spinoza was raised with a traditional Jewish education.  However, after the death of his father, Spinoza expressed doubts about Jewish teachings and was subsequently excommunicated.  Rather than seek forgiveness or repent, Spinoza turned his back on those who exiled him, and changed his Hebrew first-name ‘Baruch’ to the Latin ‘Benedictus’.  However, Spinoza was never baptized and never converted.  He lived a relatively modest life, unmarried, supporting himself as a lens-grinder, at the same time doing the philosophic work that would place him amongst the greatest of all Western minds.

In historical context, Spinoza lived at a time where many Jews were caught in the mass hysteria surrounding the false messiah Shabtai Zvi.  Spinoza went the opposite route. He wanted to free religion from religious dogma that preyed upon fear and superstition. For Spinoza, contemplation and reason was the pathway to God. Spinoza also believed that contemplation and reason was the pathway to joy, and that the greatest joy comes from the contemplation and understanding of God.

Spinoza’s god, what came to be called the god of the philosophers, is wholly immanent and never transcendent. That is to say, God exists within all of nature, but God does not exist apart from nature.  God has no personal identity, nor does God govern or intervene in a personal manner.  Spinoza’s god is indifferent, neither a dispenser of justice nor mercy.  “He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.”

Spinoza was an early modern thinker. He was an advocate for religious tolerance, especially freedom of thought and opinion. He was among the first to question the inerrancy of the bible, speculating that it had been written over time by multiple authors.

Spinoza’s ideas were consistent with later developments in science and psychology, refuting Cartesian dualism, while emphasizing mind/brain unity.  He wrote extensively about the emotions in order to understand and master them through reason, a foreshadowing of modern CBT.  

I am fascinated by Spinoza and yet I find significant shortcomings in his philosophy. He advocates for calm reason, but where in his philosophy is there a place for fervor and passion?  He most values thought and contemplation, but what of action and deed?  He believes that there is a reason for everything, but where in his philosophy is there Mystery?  He believes that every effect must have its preceding cause and is a strict determinist. Yet, what of free will?

For all of my misgivings, Spinoza still has an attractive message regarding how to live . . . put energy into contemplating life, not death, and seek that which brings joy to life.  “The proper study of a wise man is not how to die but how to live.”  And whatever my misgivings, I enjoy glimpses of Spinoza’s biting wit. “Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak.”  Funny and true.