This essay seeks to examine and respond to the issues arising from section two¹ of this course, being the Development of the criticism of sacred texts: case study Spinoza’s A Theologico-Political Treatise. While concentrating on chapter seven ‘Of the Interpretation of Scripture’, I will attempt to place his methodology for interpretation within the wider context of his whole writings on this matter. After examining the history of Spinoza’s work, I will roughly follow points a to c on pages 11 to 12 of the study guide.
 

The life and times of Baruch de Spinoza

To understand this work and its contribution to the history of hermeneutical methodology, I believe that, in the tradition of Spinoza himself, we need to briefly examine his work in the light of its history. Benedict Spinoza wrote during the seventeenth century in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation. It was a time where all sides of the religious spectrum were intent on suppressing those with views they considered heretical. Despite living in one of the more liberal areas of Europe, the constant threat of censorship and other reprisals caused Spinoza to be more reserved in his views than he might otherwise have been. Spinoza made a concerted effort to maintain a lifestyle that minimised his exposure to public scrutiny. A Theologico-Political Treatise (referred to after this simply as the Treatise) was first published in Latin without acknowledgement of his authorship. Later, Spinoza stopped a proposed publication in Dutch that would have given his thoughts wider circulation.²

When examined as a whole, much of Spinoza’s writings appear to contain major discrepancies in his views on important areas, such as the conceptions of God, attitudes to God, and behaviour in relation to God.³ Bayle echoed this confusion by describing Spinoza as ‘A Jew by birth, and afterwards a deserter from Judaism, and lastly an atheist.’⁴ After being caught up in Judeo-Christian tensions⁵ and an assassination attempt, many came to view Spinoza as an atheist. However, this appears to be due to the usage of the orthodox Judeo-Christian model where God is a personal, loving and active being. This was not the God of Spinoza. For Spinoza, God is monistic. There lies no distinction between the natural and the supernatural; everything must follow the principles of nature. It is in this context that God is described as an ‘extended physical thing as well as a thinking thing.’⁶

Spinoza’s philosophy was based in that of the Greeks. He found that this could be perfectly expressed in the languages of Hebrew, Arabic and Latin. These languages represented for Spinoza a common philosophical tradition, to the degree that it is virtually possible to undertake exact literal translating from all three languages. The same Greek terminology was the basis of these three languages and the same scientific and philosophical conceptions formed the intellectual background that shaped those who undertook philosophying in these languages. Hebrew literature was his primary source for his knowledge of philosophy, and Hebrew sources constituted his intellectual framework.⁷
 

The original purpose of the Treatise could be described as an attempt to outline the ‘best way for a community to organise its political and religious affairs for all citizens, and particularly for the vast majority who could never aspire to the purely rational way of life’.⁸ This is in the context of a period of history where the elite were struggling to maintain total control over both political and religious spheres of life. It is an attempt to open up the activity of scriptural interpretation to all, free from undue political influence. On a personal level, Spinoza sought to correct those who levelled charges of atheism towards him. However, it could be suggested that throughout the whole of Spinoza’s writings, the terms ‘nature’ and ‘God’ became completely interchangeable. In the end, the unorthodox monistic views expressed in the Treatise only confirmed the fears of the religious hierarchy, who promptly condemned the Treatise.

Behind the original purpose of the Treatise lies a desire by Spinoza for religious liberty and toleration throughout society. Perhaps Spinoza felt that as philosophers and theologians began to work within the constrains of the newly emerging science, the potential for conflict with those from the establishment who observed more traditional methods of discourse would continue the legacy of intolerance displayed during much of the reformation. Only those societies where people posses the freedom to say and think as they like will reap the rewards available through rational theological and metaphysical debates which have their basis grounded in the newly discovered evidence of science. To stifle such debate would in the end, stifle the progress of society.
 

The method of interpreting nature.

Spinoza proposes a universal rule for the interpretation of scripture. Interpretation is to occur within the constrains of natural reason where we ‘accept nothing as an authoritative Scriptural statement which we do not perceive very clearly when we examine it in the light of its history.’⁹ This includes a linguistic analysis of the period, an overview of biblical writings, and the issues revolving around the text’s authorship, acceptance and canonisation.

Spinoza identifies two basic forms of literature within Scripture.¹⁰ Firstly, the teaching of the prophets as received by revelation which he classifies as revelations or ‘theology’, and secondly, narratives or ‘histories’. For Spinoza, revelation essentially deal with those issues that surpass human comprehension. To understand and have a knowledge of those issues which are beyond human reason, we can only rely on Scripture itself. In this sense, knowledge of Scripture must be gathered from Scripture alone.

Spinoza argues that while the revelations of the prophets deal with that which is beyond rational process, ‘history’ as Scriptural narrative is essentially non-rational in its constant attributing of both the unexplainable and specific events as results of the guiding hand of God. The reporting of history is placed in the hands of those who are unable to go beyond identifying God as a secondary cause to the experiences of society. Spinoza, drawing of a Cartesian style conception of nature where everything is subject to an indifferent divine will, allows for a sense of the self-sufficiency of God’s freedom.¹¹ However, despite Spinoza’s rejection of miracles, he does not appear to completely discount the possibility of supernatural intervention, otherwise, revelations would also become non-rational. To avoid this problem, he removes the dualism between God and nature. This has the effect of removing any distinction between God teaching moral principles through natural facilities and specific revelations from God, insofar as our minds become partakers of the nature of God. Revelation loses its cognitive dimension, and becomes purely ethical.

One of Spinoza’s great contribution to textual criticism is his radical understanding of history. His writings occur at a time where the philosophical understanding of what constitutes history was still being formulated. The notion of history as a specific human attribute that contains the context of all that is essentially and distinctively human is yet to be developed.¹²

Spinoza uses the term ‘history’ in two different but intertwined senses. Firstly he uses history to refer to the history of Biblical statements. This type of history can be seen to comprise of the nature and properties of the original language, an analysis of each book and the way it treats various subjects, and the life, conduct and circumstances of the author.¹³ Spinoza’s other use of the term history is in the sense of the history of natural phenomena.

However, Spinoza’s monism suggests that God, and therefore nature, actually has no history. Nature and God, are already perfect and therefore has no end in view. His rejection of a doctrine of the existence of good and evil within nature removes any possibility of ‘final’ causality or purpose.¹⁴ That which is both perfected and eternal can have no history under this model. What was is, and what is to come is already. This particular understanding of history suggests that there is an aspect in which Scriptural statements can also have no history. The principle message of the prophets is in a sense eternal, going beyond that which can be deduced form principles known to reason.¹⁵

However, in attempting a historical analysis, Spinoza concedes that much of what is required for such analysis is irrevocably lost, to the extent ‘that the true meaning of Scripture is in many places inexplicable, or at best mere guesswork,'¹⁶ though he believes that this situation only arises in cases where meaning cannot be perceived, compared to those areas where understanding is self evident, giving clear and distinct idea.¹⁷ Much of these problems are traced back to Hebrew linguistic principles, or the lack of use of such by Biblical writers.
 

Geometric Methods

While Spinoza strongly implies that scriptural interpretations are to occur using nature to deduce definitions from fixed established principles using the powers of reason, it appears that Spinoza virtually contradicts this principle in his attempt to return the power of interpretation to all people. In fighting Descartes’ dualism, he proposes a system that requires only the use of natural reason, while implying that not all people are capable of aspiring to the course of rational reasoning. In his chapter where he attempts to display that Scripture teaches only simple doctrines, he states that Scripture only ‘teaches truth that can be readily comprehended by all; not deducing and concentrating its conclusions from definitions and axioms, but . . . by appeal to experience as exemplified in miracles and history.¹⁸ I find this statement very hard to reconcile, particularly considering his views on miracles and the philosophical basis of history. While Spinoza would often give different opinions depending on the intended audience for his material, such contradiction within one work suggests that he is more intent on keeping to his objectives in writing the Treatise¹⁹ than maintaining a perfect logical consistency.

It seems interesting that, considering the affinity Spinoza felt with nature, Spinoza does not use nature of the cosmos as his starting point, preferring to commence with a purely theoretic definition of God. Rather, in his attempt to avoid the potential for intellectual chaos and inconsistency, Spinoza attempts to reduce the possible methods of understanding by proving his conclusions via a method modelled on Euclid’s geometry, using rigorous definitions, axioms, propositions and corollaries. Euclid’s geometry is a type of purist method (compared to an applied method), where it is assumed that the a priori assumptions are correct, therefore allowing valid deductions.²⁰ This means that we ‘need make no researches concerning the life, the pursuits, or the habits of the author; nor need we inquire in what language, nor when he wrote.’²¹ We trust that the assumptions of the author are in themselves correct. Despite the inadequacies of such a mathematical model, its result is to wrench the power and authority of interpretation away from the elite, and return it to all those who posses the power of reason. All that is needed is the ability to determine whether a Scriptural statement answers to the claim of reason, while approaching the text in a way that is careful, impartial, and endeavours to make no assumptions concerning it and attributing to it no doctrines.²²

Spinoza methodology effectively restores the hermeneutic condition of allegory. This enables the reader to rationalise and naturalise the text within a prevailing philosophical outlook.²³ The words of Scripture are effectively removed out of their ‘sacred’ history and recontextualised within a detached form of history, where the Scripture is little more than a distant dead exhibit, devoid of life in itself and unable to continue its evolution as a living document. The text has become a disengaged rational analytical subject, and must therefore be interpreted in a disengaged, rational, and analytical way.

This view has strong affinities with Cartesian hermeneutics, where a sense of textual alienation is a prior requirement for freedom from the text. Such alienation is exemplified by Spinoza’s insistence that the Scriptures have nothing to say in the area of philosophy.²⁴ This separation underlies the whole of the Treatise. It appears that Spinoza’s desire to separate theology from philosophy is motivated by a desire to separate ecclesiastical influence from political affairs.²⁵ The infallibility claimed by clergy in Scriptural interpretation had given them undeserved authority on all matters of life, including the political sphere. Spinoza sought to reduce their power, enabling a society free of such totalitarian influences.
 

Unifying principles of rational knowledge

Both Descartes and Spinoza used the newly emerging natural science as the underlying basis for their respective philosophies. Descartes was the first, but he maintained the historical distinction between God and nature, making God wholly mental or spiritual.²⁶ Such dualism was vigorously opposed by Spinoza. He insisted that religious knowledge must be obtained in the same was as any other form of knowledge. The Scriptures, being devoid of life in themselves, must be read in the same manner as all other writings. Despite the acknowledgement of a supernatural faculty granted to the faithful as a divine gift,²⁷ Spinoza maintains that those powers of natural reason available to all are sufficient for the process of Scriptural interpretation. This can be demonstrated by the fact that many of the prophets spoke to unbelievers, who were expected to understand and act upon the prophets message.
 

Knowledge for Spinoza, is derived from ‘common notions’. Despite his usage of physics being highly mechanistic, it maintains a degree of flexibility that allows single living principles to operate according to necessary laws. Interconnected individuals, where the whole precedes the parts, and is their totalization.²⁸ This is a much more flexible system than that of Descartes.

His use of mathematical models suggest that different types of knowledge do not need different types of objects. However, in using mathematics, he engages entities of reason that only exist in the intellect. Most writers agree that Spinoza’s use of mathematical models leads to various problems in providing a full analogy with real things. This can be seen in while abstract entities are the same despite how they are defined, Spinoza concedes that Euclidean definitions within geometry do not actually give geometrical figures their essence. They remain as ‘entities of reason, abstractions that exist only in the intellect and not in reality.’²⁹
 

In conclusion

Throughout Spinoza’s philosophical journey, he constantly sought after truth. The scientific renaissance suggested that such truth was attainable through physics. His search was not of a mystical religious nature, but cognitive. For while religious living is moral in nature, and can only produce ‘moral’ certainty, philosophy leads to intellect satisfying certainty that is 'mathematical' due to its methodology.³⁰ Spinoza’s place in the development of modern Biblical and literary criticism is characterised by his emphasis on monism and rationalism, despite his sometimes questionable methods, and his innovative understanding of what constitutes history.
 

Bibliography
 

Bruns, Gerald, L., Hermeneutics: Ancient and Modern Yale University Press, New Haven, 1992.
 

Fox, Arthur C., Faith and Philosophy: Spinoza on religion University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1990.
 

Grene, Marjorie (ed.), Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1973.
 

Hospers, John An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1953.
 

Spinoza, Benedict, A Theologico-Political Treatise (R.H.M. Elwes, trans.) Dover, New York, 1951, pp. 98-119.
 

Weeks, Ian & Bilimoria, Purusottama Cross-cultural Investigations and Hermeneutics: Study Guide Deakin University, Geelong, 1997.
 

Yovel, Yirmiyahu (ed.), God and nature: Spinoza’s metaphysics E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1991.

¹ Or more precisely, Part 2 of the Study Guide, pp. 9-13.

² A.J. Watt Introduction in A.C. Fox Faith and Philosophy: Spinoza on religion University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1990, p. viii.

³ Ibid., p. ix.

⁴ Ibid., p. xii.

⁵ I. Weeks Weeks & P. Bilimoria Cross-cultural Investigations and Hermeneutics: Study Guide Deakin University, Geelong, 1997, p. 9.

⁶ Watt, op. cit. p. x.

⁷ H.A. Wolfson Behind the Geometrical Method in M. Grene (ed.), Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1973, p. 8.

⁸ Watt, op. cit., p. xi.

⁹ B. Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise (R.H.M. Elwes, trans.) Dover, New York, 1951, p. 101.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 100.

¹¹ S. Zac On the Idea of Creation in Spinoza’s Philosophy in Y. Yovel (ed.), God and nature: Spinoza’s metaphysics E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1991, p. 240.

¹² Weeks, op. cit., p. 13.

¹³ Spinoza, op. cit., pp. 101-3.

¹⁴ Fox, op. cit., p. 32.

¹⁵ Spinoza, op. cit., p. 100.

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 112.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 175.

¹⁹ as outlined in his letter to Henry Oldburgh, 1665. See For, op. cit., p. 4.

²⁰ J. Hospers, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1953, p. 195.

²¹ Spinoza, op. cit., p. 113.

²² G. Bruns, Hermeneutics: Ancient and Modern Yale University Press, New Haven, 1992, p. 149.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Spinoza, op. cit., p. 190.

²⁵ Fox, op. cit., p. 25.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 134.

²⁷ Spinoza, op. cit., p. 114.

²⁸ Zac, op. cit., p. 240.

²⁹ E. M. Curley Experience in Spinoza’s Theory of Knowledge in Grene, op. cit., p. 29.

³⁰ Fox, op. cit., p. 29.