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From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: How the arguments went in 1675
Message-ID: <1991Apr28.111306.3321@sics.se>
Date: 28 Apr 91 11:13:06 GMT
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Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
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  Spinoza's name crops up every now and then in these groups, and I myself
have been guilty of invoking Spinoza in a somewhat obfuscating spirit.
I think it may be a good idea to post here a letter of his to one
Albert Burgh, who converted to Catholicism and exhorted Spinoza to do
the same. ("God is willing to snatch your soul from eternal damnation,
if you will allow Him.") Those who, like Einstein and Russell, think
highly of Spinoza don't usually find the "proofs" in his _Ethics_ very
convincing. What is so striking when one reads Spinoza is the very
great force and honesty of his intellect. The arguments and counterarguments
found in the text below will be familiar to readers of alt.atheism and
talk.religion.misc: I think you will agree that we haven't really improved on
Spinoza's presentation. The translation from the Latin is by R.H.M.Elwes.


    Spinoza to Albert Burgh:


     That, which I could scarcely believe when told me by others, I learn
at last from your own letter; not only have you been made a member of the
Romish Church, but you are become a very keen champion of the same, and
have already learned wantonly to insult and rail against your opponents.

  At first I resolved to leave your letter unanswered, thinking that time
and experience will assuredly be of more avail than reasoning, to restore
you to yourself and your friends; not to mention other arguments, which
won your approval formerly, when we were discussing the case of Steno, in
whose steps you are now following. But some of my friends, who like
myself had formed great hopes from your superior talents, strenuously urge
me not to fail in the offices of a friend, but to consider what you lately
were, rather than what you are, with other arguments of the like nature. I
have thus been induced to write you this short reply, which I earnestly beg
you will think worthy of calm perusal.

  I will not imitate those adversaries of Romanism, who would set forth the
vices of priests and popes with a view to kindling your aversion. Such
considerations are often put forward from evil and unworthy motives, and
tend rather to irritate than to instruct. I will even admit, that more
men of learning and of blameless life are found in the Romish Church than
in any other Christian body; for, as it contains more members, so will
every type of character be more largely represented in it. You cannot
possibly deny, unless you have lost your memory as well as your reason,
that in every CHurch there are thoroughly honorable men, who worship God
with justice and charity. We have known many such among the Lutherans, the
Reformed Church, the Mennonites, and the Enthusiasts. Not to go further,
you knew your own relations, who in the time of the Duke of Alva suffered
every kind of torture bravely and willingly for the sake of their
religion. In fact, you must admit, that personal holiness is not peculiar
to the Romish Church, but common to all Churches.

  As it is by this, that we know "that we dwell in God and He in us" (1 Ep.
John, iv. 13), it follows that what distinguishes the Romish Church from
others must be something entirely superfluous, and therefore founded
solely on superstition. For, as John says, justice and charity are the one
sure sign of the true Catholic faith, and the true fruits of the Holy
Spirit. Wherever they are found, there in truth is Christ; wherever they
are absent, Christ is absent also. For only by the Spirit of Christ can
we be led to the love of justice and charity. Had you been willing to
reflect on these points, you would not have ruined yourself, nor have
brought deep affliction on your relations, who are now sorrowfully
bewailing your evil case.

  But I return to your letter, which you begin, by lamenting that I
allow myself to be ensnared by the prince of evil spirits. Pray take
heart, and recollect yourself. When you had the use of your faculties,
you were wont, if I mistake not, to worship an Infinite God, by Whose
efficacy all things absolutely come to pass and are preserved; now
you dream of a prince, God's enemy, who against God's will ensnares
and deceives very many men (rarely good ones, to be sure), whom God
thereupon hands over to this master of wickedness to be tortured
eternally. The Divine justice therefore allows the devil to deceive
men and remain unpunished; but it by no means allows to remain unpunished
the men, who have been by that self-same devil miserably deceived
and ensnared.

  These absurdities might so far be tolerated, if you worshipped a God
infinite and eternal; not one whom Chastillon, in the town which the
Dutch call Tienen, gave with impunity to horses to be eaten. And, poor
wretch, you bewail me? My philosophy, which you never beheld, you style
a chimera> O youth deprived of understanding, who has betwitched you
into believing, that the Supreme and Eternal is eaten by you, and held
in your intestines?

  Yet you seem to wish to employ reason, and ask me, "How I know that my
philosophy is the best among all that have ever been taught in the world,
or are being taught, or ever will be taught?" a question which I might
with much greater right ask you; for I do not presume that I have
found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.
If you ask in what way I know it, I answer: In the same way as you know
that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles: that
this is sufficient, will be denied by no one whose brain is sound, and who
does not go dreaming of evil spirits inspiring us with false ideas like
the true. For the truth is the index of itself and of what is false.

  But you, who presume that you have at last found the best religion,
or rather the best men, on whom you have pinned your credulity, you, "who
know that they are the best among all who have taught, do now teach, or
shall in future teach other religions. Have you examined all religions,
ancient as well as modern, taught here and in India and everywhere
throught the world? And, if you have duly examined them, how do you know
that you have chosen the best", since you can give no reason for the faith
that is in you? But you will say, that you acquiesce in the inward
testimony of the Spirit of God, while the rest of mankind are ensnared
and deceived by the prince of evil spirits. But all those outside the pale
of the Romish Church can with equal right proclaim of their own creed
what you proclaim of yours.

  As to what you add of the common consent of myriads of men and the
uninterrupted ecclesiastical succession, this is the very catch-word
of the Pharisees. They with no less confidence than the devotees of
Rome bring forward their myriad witnesses, who as pertinaciously as
the Roman witnesses repeat what they have heard, as though it were
their personal experience. Further, they carry back their line to
Adam. They boast with equal arrogance, that their Church has continued
to this day unmoved and unimpaired in spite of the hatred of Christians
and heathen. They more than any other sect are supported by antiquity.
They exclaim with one voice, that they have received their traditions
from God Himself, and that they alone preserve the Word of God both
written and unwritten. That all heresies have issued from them, and
that they have remained constant through thousands of years under no
constraint of temporal dominion, but by the sole efficacy of their
superstition, no one can deny. The miracles they tell of would tire a
thousand tongues. But their chief boast is, that they count a far greater
number of martyrs than any other nation, a number which is daily
increased by those who suffer with singular constancy for the faith
they profess; nor is their boasting false. I myself knew among others
a certain Judah called the faithful, who in the midst of the flames,
when he was already thought to be dead, lifted his voice to sing the
hymn beginning "To Thee, O God, I offer up my soul," and so singing
perished.

  The organization of the Roman CHurch, which you so greatly praise, I
confess to be politic, and to many lucrative. I should believe that
there was no other more convenient for deceiving the people and
keeping men's minds in check, if it were not for the organization of
the Mahometan Church, which far surpasses it. For from the time when
this superstition arose, there has been no schism in its church.

  If, therefore, you had rightly judged, you would have seen that only
your third point tells in favor of the Christians, namely, that
unlearned and common men should have been able to convert nearly the whole
world to a belief in Christ. But this reason militates not only for the
Romish Church, but for all those who profess the name of Christ.

  But assume that all the reasons you bring forward tell in favor solely
of the Romish Church. Do you think that you can thereby prove
mathematically the authority of that Church? As the case is far
otherwise, why do you wish me to believe that my demonstrations are
inspired by the prince of evil spirits, while your own are inspired
by God, especially as I see, and as your letter clearly shows, that
you have been led to become a devotee of this Church not by your love
of God, but by your fear of hell, the single cause of superstition?
Is this your humility, that you trust nothing to yourself, but everything to
others, who are condemned by many of their fellow men? Do you set
it down to pride and arrogance, that I employ reason and acquiesce in
this true Word of God, which is in the mind and can never be depraved
or corrupted? Cast away this deadly superstition, acknowledge the reason
which God has given you, and follow that, unless you would be numbered
with the brutes. Cease, I say, to call ridiculous errors mysteries,
and do not basely confound those things which are unknown to us, or
have not yet been discovered, with what is proved to be absurd, like
the horrible secrets of this Church of yours, which, in proportion as
they are repugnant to right reason, you believe to transcend the
understanding.

  But the fundamental principle of the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,"
that Scripture should only be expounded through Scripture, which you so
wantonly without any reason proclaim to be false, it is not merely
assumed, but categorically proved to be true or sound; especially in
chapter vii., where also the opinions of adversaries are confuted; see
also what is proved at the end of chapter xv. If you will reflect on
these things, and also examine the history of the Church (of which I see
you are completely ignorant), in order to see how false, in many respects,
is Papal tradition, and by what course of events and with what cunning
the Pope of Rome six hundred years after Christ obtained supremacy over
the Church, I do not doubt that you will eventually return to your senses.
That this result may come to pass I, for your sake, heartily wish.
Farewell, &c.