The Problem of Literalism Part 4: Spinoza
“But we should depart as little as possible from the literal sense. . . . If we do not find it signifying anything else in normal linguistic usage, that is how we must interpret the expression, however much it may conflict with reason. . . . For, as we have already shown, we are not permitted to adjust meaning of Scripture to the dictates of our reason or our preconceived opinions; all explanations of the Bible must be sought from the Bible alone.” Theological-Political Treatise, trans. Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 10.
I once started a sermon with the above quote. The regular church members nodded their heads in assent and approval until I informed them that the quote was written by one of the most vicious modern enemies of Christianity, Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677). He used literal sense as a devastating weapon against even the possibility of revealed religion. And he did so as a theist.
We live in world enframed by Spinoza’s system of interpretation and his materialistic philosophy. Men such as Dawkins (a biologist) and Ehrman (a biblical text critic) use his interpretive method without thought or apology. Even within the church, this system of materialism influences our minds in such a way that we accept the vocabulary of this theory of interpretation without thought.
A warning before we begin, if a reader deals only with Spinoza’s rhetoric, he or she will quickly be led into a morass, but if one deals carefully with his definitions, logic, and presuppositions, the foundation of his caustic literalism becomes clear. His intent is especially apparent in the application of his interpretive belief policy; Romans 15:20 is a good place to begin; he translates it, “Anxiously endeavoring not to preach where the name of Christ was already invoked, lest I build on an alien foundation” Ibid.157. The context of this passage is Paul speaking to the churches of Rome about his desire to preach the gospel in areas where no other missionary had been.
It will be instructive here to compare his translation with the contemporary translation of the King James Version: “Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation.”
Spinoza has made some curious translation decisions; the first is to translate euvaggeli,zesqai as merely “to preach” rather than “to preach the gospel.” To preach is an acceptable translation, though it is an extremely minimal one given the context and the Greek word’s relationship to the word translated as gospel (euvagge,lion) or good news used in verse 19. Throughout the Greek New Testament and to a lesser degree the Septuagint, the Greek words translated as gospel and "preach the gospel" refer to the message of salvation or the details regarding the life of Jesus Christ (s.v., BDAG).
The second choice is to translate avllo,trioj as alien rather than “another man’s.” Again the translation exists within the spectrum of meaning of the word, but it does seem insensitive to the context.
Having considered the translating issues, let’s continue with his exposition of Romans 15:20:
Clearly, had they all the same style of teaching, and had they established the Christian religion on the same foundation, Paul would definitely not have termed another Apostle’s foundations ‘alien’, as his own would have been the same. Since he does pronounce them alien, it necessarily follows that each of them constructed the edifice of religion on a different foundation. . . .Furthermore, if we read through the Epistles themselves with some care, we shall see that the Apostles do indeed agree about religion itself, but widely disagree as to its foundations. Paul, for instance, to strengthen men in religion and to show them that salvation depends upon the grace of God alone, taught that no one may glory in their works but in faith alone, and that no one is justified by works (see Epistle to the Romans, 3.27-8), as well as the whole doctrine of predestination. On the other hand, James, in his Epistle, teaches that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone (see Epistle of James 2.24); indeed, James sums up his whole doctrine of religion in a very few words ignoring all of Paul’s arguments. Ibid.
We now have before us Spinoza’s biblical literalism; each individual word is to be taken in its “normal sense.” And there is no attempt to harmonize the interpretation through either textual or canonical context. In Spinoza’s mind it is abundantly clear that the gospels or the preaching of James and Paul were at loggerheads. They have different foundations and so there is a formal contradiction between the two foundations. Any attempt to harmonize James 2:24 and Romans 3:27-28 by suggesting that it is an apparent contradiction because one of the authors is using the word faith or justification differently is to be rejected as adjusting the “meaning of Scripture to the dictates of our reason or our preconceived opinions.” The preconceived notion in this case is that the preaching of the apostles was “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) and the inspiration of the Scripture which allows the writers’ intent to be harmonized independently of different emphasis in vocabulary usage.
The foundation of Spinoza’s literalism is his understanding of God. As he tells us, “God’s will and God’s understanding are in reality one and the same thing. . .” Ibid. 62. (Cf. Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion). The logical outcome of this statement is pantheism. All that is is God. And Spinoza slyly exposes this by immediately exhibiting the ramifications for biblical interpretation: “If, for example, God said to Adam that he did not wish him to eat of ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,’ it would entail a contradiction for Adam to be able to eat of it, and therefore it was impossible that Adam should eat of it; for the eternal decree must have contained an eternal necessity and truth.” Ibid.
In pantheism if God were to speak, God’s word would be identical to the events of the physical world, because creation or nature is not separate from God in anyway. For Adam to disobey God would mean that Adam was somehow distinct from God, but if there are no internal distinctions within God, there can be no external distinctions. Thus Adam cannot disobey, because he is a part of God, just as nature is a part of God.
Simply put Spinoza’s God is not personal or a person, because there are no internal distinctions within his God. His God is no more personal than gravity. The God of Spinoza cannot say, “I Am the I Am,” (Exod. 3:14), because self-consciousness requires the internal distinction of subject, object, and subject-percipient. (Cf. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 3.4, Augustine, On the Trinity). Thus the source of biblical revelation is only the imagination of men (cf. Theological-Political Treatise, chapter 1).
Further, because there is no distinction between God and nature; all that is knowable for humanity is material and material causes or as he puts it rather bluntly: “nothing happens contrary to nature, but nature maintains an eternal, fixed, and immutable order. . .” And “I will show from some examples in the Bible that by the decrees, volitions and providence of God, Scripture itself means nothing other than the order of nature which necessarily follows from his eternal law” Theological-Political Treatise, 83. What is is absolutely God’s will because there is no distinction between nature and God and no internal distinctions within God. Spinoza cannot be counted an atheist, but he was an incredibly rigorous and philosophical pantheist.
Since all that is knowable is nature or extrapolated directly from human observation of nature, knowledge of god/nature can spring only from the human observation of nature. The keener the observer of nature the more insight he has into god. Since nature and god are identical and god is infinite and eternal, nature itself must exhibit a uniformity and continuity which stretches back into eternity.
The Bible then is no more or no less true than any other book which is not drawn from observable and testable universal principals. As a product of the human mind, it can only bear witness to the speculation or imagination of its authors. Or as Spinoza puts it in reference to understanding “natural divine law”: “Belief in a historical narrative however reliable it may be, can give us no knowledge of God nor consequently love of God either. For love of God arises from knowledge of him; and knowledge of him has to be drawn from universal notions which are certain in themselves and well-known. . . .” Ibid, 61.
Because the Bible’s historical narrative has no value in telling us about God or nature, it must be reinterpreted along literal lines or by natural reason: and he exhibits this for us in the account of Adam and the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil:
Hence, this one prohibition laid by God on Adam entails the whole divine law and agrees fully with the dictate of the natural light of reason. It would not be difficult to explain the whole history, or parable, of the first man on this basis, but I prefer to let it go. I cannot be absolutely sure whether my explanation agrees with the intention of the writers, and many people do not concede that this history is a parable, but insist it is a straight forward narrative. Ibid. 65.
Spinoza’s literalism is not concerned with the claims of the text. The Bible is to be reinterpreted through natural reason. Historical narrative must become a parable; the writers’ intent is tossed into the ditch of history, because this is what we are taught by “the natural light of reason.” And thus we find that Varreo’s (cf. the first Augustine article) demystifying project has reasserted itself in history. Spinoza’s exegetical project was to conform the Bible to the light of reason, and reason is defined and limited by his presuppositions and definitions drawn from a materialistic philosophy.
How is it that Varreo’s ancient project could reappear in history and be applied to the Bible? The answer is that Varreo and Spinoza share some common first premises. And these first premises deal with what knowledge is, what man is, and what nature is, and what God is. The first premise held by Spinoza and Varreo is Epicureanism.
Epicureanism is named after its founder Epicurus (c. 341-370 B.C.) who had a rather phenomenal thing to say about the best belief policy for interpretation: “We must accept without further explanation the first mental image brought up by each word if we are to have any standard to which to refer a particular inquiry, problem, or opinion” [“Letter to Herodotus,” trans. Russel M. Geer, in Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, and Vatican Sayings (New York: MacMillian Publishing Company, 1964), 9, 38a.].
His quote is interesting, because it’s the rough draft of Spinoza’s hermeneutical policy. And it’s the same as the method used by everyone else who consistently holds to the first premises of materialism in its variant forms—pantheistic and atheistic. The point to grasp from this is that Spinoza’s hermeneutic policy springs from prior presuppositions (some of which can be proven false or at least improbable). Since his presuppositions begin with rejecting the possibility of a God separate from creation, his hermeneutic of literalism confirms it. The Bible cannot be inspired as described by the authors of the Bible because nature, as interpreted by the Epicureans, does not reveal such a God. Nature and the Bible cannot be harmonized, because nature is the real while the Bible contains the imagination of men. The authors of the Bible must contradict each other, because they are just making stuff up. And so the literalism of Spinoza.
A few thoughts before closing: We live in an Epicurean age; we breathe materialism. But philosophical and theological sensuality or materialism is not necessitated by nature nor is the Epicurean hermeneutic.
Lording willing, next month we will move to Dispensational literalism.