The Spinoza Problem

by Irvin D. Yalom

“What do you say, Baruch? Now, when it is time for you to speak, you remain silent.” “More times than I can remember,” Baruch responded in a calm voice, “my father spoke of his friendship with you and his high regard for you. He also told me of your high opinion of my mind—‘limitless intelligence’ were the words he attributed to you. Were these indeed your words? Did he cite you correctly?” “Those were my words.” “I believe the world and everything in it operate according to natural law and that I can use my intelligence, provided I employ it in a rational mode, to discover the nature of God and reality and the path to a blessed life. I’ve said this to you before, have I not?” Rabbi Mortera placed his head in his hands and nodded. “And yet today you suggest that I spend my life confirming or negating my views by consulting rabbinical scholarship. That is not and will not be my way. Rabbinical authority is not based on purity of truth. It rests only on the expressed opinions of generations of superstitious scholars, scholars who believed the world was flat, circled by the sun, and that one man named Adam suddenly appeared and fathered the human race.” “You deny the divinity of Genesis?” “Do you deny the evidence showing that there were civilizations long predating the Israelites? In China? In Egypt?” “Such blasphemy. Do you not realize how you jeopardize your place in the world to come?” “There is no rational evidence for the existence of a world to come.”