In the Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza undermines the idea that the source of knowledge derives from Scripture. Spinoza is claiming that “Scripture requires nothing of men other than obedience, and condemns not ignorance, but disobedience” (Steinberg 3.2). Spinoza uses Moses as an example, explaining that Moses “threatened the people with punishment if they should infringe the law, and promised rewards if they should obey it. All these are not means for teaching knowledge, but for inspiring obedience” (Spinoza ch. 14). Spinoza claims that the Scripture is teaching individuals what they “ought to do in order to obey God” (Spinoza ch. 14) and that this is done through the love of one’s neighbor. “The ethical message of loving God and loving one's neighbor is the backbone of all religion, the whole of divine law” (Steinberg 3.2). …show more content…
Spinoza simply believes that there are flaws in the way people interpret religion and Scripture. Spinoza claims that individuals can not interpret the Scripture through translation. Spinoza argues that due to the fact that no language is translated completely correct, translations have alterations. “We must take especial care, when we are in search of the meaning of a text, not to be led away by our reason in so far as it is founded on principles of natural knowledge (to say nothing of prejudices): in order not to confound the meaning of a passage with its truth, we must examine it solely by means of the signification of the words, or by a reason acknowledging no foundation but Scripture.” (Spinoza ch. 7) He argues that you must treat Scripture the way natural scientists treat nature. When interpreting Scripture, the interpretations must be limited to what is in the Bible. This is similar to how natural scientists look at nature and make inquires based on
...Spinoza insists, it is nonetheless possible that two substances can be distinguished in virtue of them sharing an attribute and yet be distinct in nature by possessing an attribute not shared by the other. So, whereas substance A shares an attribute with substance B - namely, both share attribute C - the former differs in nature from the latter in terms of each one possessing an attribute not contained by the other. If the nature of Substance A is attribute C and attribute D, and if the nature of substance B is C and E, then it appears that the nature of each one, though each shares an attribute in common, is fundamentally distinct. So, it appears that Spinoza’s commitment to the thesis that no two substances share the same nature or attribute stands in error, and thus I conclude under the possibility two substances sharing an attribute while differing in nature.
Spinoza cites the source of the misconception of freedom as man’s inability to understand himself and the causes of his actions. Spinoza expounds on this confusion, “So, experience itself, no less clearly than reason, teaches that men believe themselves free because they are conscious of their own, and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined, that the decisions of the mind are nothing but the appetites themselves, which therefore vary as the disposition of the body.”(p.157) Spinoza conceives decisions and determination to be the same thing, but considered under different lights. When being considered through the lens of thought, the idea is considered a decision; while through the light of extension, it is considered determination, an action caused by laws of motion and rest. Though considered differently, the source of both of these ideas are caused by the striving of the human will, and thus dependent on
Spinoza argues that there is only one substance that exists which he names as God who is immeasurable and boundless. In this perspective nothing is outside the bounds of, or apart from God. If one relates these ideas of Spinoza to his idea of ‘the web of social relations’ expresses the fundamental conviction that connected and dependent on each other. Every event or matter i...
Averroes begins by analyzing the Book of God in order to prove that philosophy, or intellect, is a vital aspect of religion, and that it is necessary for complete comprehension of the Law. “Since it has now been established that the Law has rendered obligatory the study of beings by the intellect…therefore we are under an obligation to carry on our study of beings by intellectual reasoning”(165). He goes on to instruct that intellect should be collected by means of gathering all previous knowledge of its kind since one person cannot discover everything about one particular subject. Of course, not all people will interpret text the same way, and some might even make wrongful interpretations by accident. When this happens, the original texts from which the interpretations come from should not be prohibited because more competent individuals will come along that will be able to infer the proper meanings to pass on to the people.
Spinoza believes that the only way to differentiate two or more things is through the recognition of the modes which are different between them. It is not possible to distinguish between two apples by examining how they are both red and round, these attributes are similar, and you are therefore required to find a difference between them in order to draw any sort of distinction. Proposition five is the first major argument he presents, and that is the argument that two substances cannot share an attribute. In the process of trying to find a distinction between two objects we examine their modes which are sensible qualities about the object. However, because these sensible qualities are products of attributes there is in fact no real difference
...rinciples of law that were founded outside of his or her own opinion. They are not the source of what is just or unjust, but rather they merely apply the rules already established from years of social progression and political influence. Thus, when Divine Command theorists argue that they have successfully conquered the Euthyphro Argument, they must be reminded that the opposite is true, and the age-old dilemma has actually reduced their deities to magistrates of morality.
Perhaps my choice of the subject may come across as a little eccentric, to say the least. To appear quaint and whimsical, however, is not my intention, so I figured as an introduction, I would explain my choice. From so far as I can tell, philosophy, or the search for truth, has all too often been equated with certainty. This quality of certainty has been especially magnified in the rationalist branch of philosophy. Starting with Descartes’ vision of a philosophy with a mathematical certainty, rationalists claimed to have grasped a rather large portion of reality, including the world, God, consciousness, and whatever falls in-between. As empiricists argued, most of this "knowledge" was in effect assumed, a habit, as it had no representation in the real world. The rationalists’ notorious abstractness and their disregard for the seeming discrepancy between their proofs and the real world have been the main reasons for the fearsome opposition and caricature they faced: even Voltaire, though influenced to a great extent by Leibniz’s philosophy, ridicules it in his masterpiece Candide in the form of ludicrously optimistic Pangloss. . Kant, especially, has put a rather impressive dent in the hull of rationalist philosophy, branding it dogmatic metaphysics. As he pointed out, rationalist philosophy ignores the sensory component of human perception when embarking on its ill-fated quest to find a metaphysics with absolute knowledge. I find this criticism the most powerful, as it points out the discrepancy between the real world and the abstract world of rationalists.
The Bible is read and interpreted by many people all over the world. Regardless, no one knows the absolute truth behind scripture. Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament, wrote “Biblical Authority” to help people understand what he describes as six different parts that make up the foundation to ones understanding of scripture. He defines these six features as being: inherency, interpretation, imagination, ideology, inspiration, and importance. As Brueggemann explains each individual part, it is easy to see that they are all interconnected because no one can practice one facet without involuntarily practicing at least one other part.
In his book on ethics, Spinoza spends some time focusing on the nature of emotions. The emotions that Spinoza first focused on were passive emotions that were not based on adequate ideas but on inadequate ideas. Explaining how easy it is for humans to be driven into certain directions governed by certain passions, showing the inability of humans to sometimes control their own passions. Spinoza did not just only want to describe these emotions but also wanted to show the strengths in human emotions. Setting up preparation into discussing exactly how the human mind can gain control over the emotions by acknowledging and understanding the difficulty it is for one to overcome them. It is known that Spinoza’s has rejected the idea of free will. The base of human freedom is not free will, it is reason. When one is governed by adequate ideas one is capable to governing ones passions. Spinoza shows why reason itself is capable of controlling ones emotions because, for Spinoza, reason itself is an emotive force, as an emotional power, explaining why it is so profoundly difficult to overcome ones passion and why truth itself can not liberate from one passion.
Throughout the history of metaphysics the question, What is? has always been answered in an incomplete,unsatisfactory or complicated manner, but Spinoza tried to answer this question in an exceptional way simply by describing God and His essence. Based on Spinoza’s views, God’s qualities can be referred to as attributes and modes are merely affections of a substance. This paper will provide a detailed view of Spinoza’s key ontological definition of God as the only substance, his attributes, and their co-relations. The study goes further to explore the major scholarly argument between Spinoza and Descartes, in regard to their view of substance, and its attributes.
Spinoza's philosophy had a practical aim. What he wanted to do was to show the way to perfect peace of mind and joy offered by the life of reason. The Ethics is written as a guidebook to a happy, intellectually flourishing life. Basic in Spinoza's thought is the simple observation that we all want to live well but do not know the way to a happy life. He wanted to give us the instructions which include principles about how to guard us from the power of passions which prevent the mind from understanding. In this paper my aim is to consider how well founded Spinoza's techniques against the passions are. I will do this by concentrating on Jonathan Bennett's criticism of Spinozistic psychotherapy. Bennett finds from the Ethics three central techniques of freeing oneself from passions: (i) reflecting on determinism; (ii) separating and joining; and (iii) turning passions into actions. Bennett believes that all these techniques are in some sense flawed. My contention is that Bennett offers good criticism against 'reflecting on determinism'-technique but that his criticism against 'separating and joining'-technique as well as against 'turning passions into actions'-technique is not well-founded. The paper devotes most space to the 'turning passions into actions'-technique. However, before considering Bennett's view of Spinoza's psychotherapy, I will give an overview of Spinoza's theory of activity and passivity.
He entails that a substance is in itself, followed by being conceived through it. Therefore, it is impossible for us to be classified as a substance, so beings according to Spinoza’s interpretation meant we’re instead a Mode of a Substance. For him we’re all modes of God because we depend on God for our existence and are conceived through God’s essence. Hence, a mode being in another and conceived through another. Moving on to the next definition an attribute, which is an essence of an object or being. For example when examining a ruler, the extension is an attribute of the eraser. Last but not least axions, which implies it’s rather in itself or in another. Spinoza firmly grasped the ideology that by them being conceived through other things, everything as a whole is conceived through itself or another. Wholly by that every contribution of nature can be comprehended by rationalizing the foundation. From establishing the cause the comprehension follows necessarily. An exhibition of this would be if you’re a bachelor then you’re unmarried considering one cannot be a married bachelor. Now that the definitions have been untangled one ought to display how they mold into the previously mentioned
The Catholic Church has many avenues for teaching the word of God. This is a difficult task due to language barriers and variations in interpretations of various church documents. The complications of these interpretations are exampled in such terms as inspiration, inerrancy and canon. This essay will briefly describe these terms and attempt to shed some light on how the Catholic Church uses them in the interpretation of biblical documents.
The first five books of the Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy contain the beginnings of the story of God and humanity. At a first glance each book seems not fully connect with all the others; yet with a closer look, the Pentateuch is one complete story to be read in unison. In fact, Gary Schnittjer would say that Genesis 1-12 stets the pattern for the rest of the Pentateuch’s story and form. Furthermore, the continuity between the five books raises the question of authorship. Was the Pentateuch the work of a sole-author—Moses, or is the Pentateuch a compilation of several writings put together in order to tell one story? Therefore, current scholarship on the authorship of the Pentateuch helps to answer that