The Spinoza Problem

by Irvin D. Yalom

“It is against reason to think that we, as we are today, will persist after death. The body and the mind are two aspects of the same person. The mind cannot persist after the body dies.”

Again, I remind you these are all human opinions; they have nothing to do with the laws of Nature, and nothing can occur contrary to the fixed laws of Nature. Nature, which is infinite and eternal and encompasses all substance in the universe, acts according to orderly laws that cannot be superseded by supernatural means. A decayed body, returned to dust, cannot be reassembled. Genesis tells us this most clearly: ‘You will eat your bread until you return to the earth, from which you were taken, because earth you are and to earth you shall

“But now,” Bento continued in a soft, teacherly voice, “I have given up these childish hopes and have replaced them by the certain knowledge that I hold my father inside me—his face, his love, his wisdom—and in this manner I am already united with him. Blessed reunion must occur in this life because this life is all we have. There is no eternal blessedness in the world to come because there is no world to come. Our task, and I believe the Torah teaches us this, is to attain blessedness in this life now by living a life of love and of learning to know God. True piety consists in justice, charity, and love of one’s neighbor.”

have told you that Nature is eternal, infinite, and encompasses all substance.”

“And have I not told you that God is eternal, infinite, and encompasses all substance?”

“If God and Nature have the identical properties, then what is the difference between God and Nature?”

“And I give you the answer you already know: there is no difference. God is Nature. Nature is God.”

You may be the fool to think him a fool.”

The new wave of psychoanalytic thought embraced by Friedrich agreed with Spinoza that the future is determined by what has gone before, by our physical and psychological makeup—our passions, fears, goals; our temperament, our love of self, our stances toward others.

“Much of what religious leaders do has little to do with God,” Baruch replied. “Last year you gave a cherem to a man who bought meat from a kosher Ashkenazi butcher rather than a Sephardic butcher. You think that was relevant to God?”

religious authorities of all hues seek to impede the development of our rational faculties.”

Religion and statehood must be separated.

took my own path because of my gifts, not despite them. Do you understand? Because of my gifts, not despite them.”

I don’t believe that questioning is a malady. Blind obedience without questioning is the malady.”

There is no evidence whatsoever for your claims about Father’s spirit. I know you hear such fairy tales from our rabbis, but don’t you see how it serves their purposes? They control us by fear and hope: fear of what will happen after death and hope that if we live in some particular fashion—one that is good for the congregation and for the continued authority of the rabbis—we will enjoy a blissful life in the world to come.”

“I say to you that when the body dies, the soul dies. There is no world to

come. I shall not permit the rabbis or anyone else to forbid me to reason, for it is only through reason that we can know God, and this quest is the only true source of blessedness in this life.”

“Fear breeds superstition,” he read. And: “Weak and greedy people in adversity use prayers and womanish tears to implore help from God.”

“pomp and ceremony invested in religion clogs the mind of men with dogmatism, crowds out sound reason leaving not enough room for even a modicum of doubt.”

to speak of religion as “a tissue of ridiculous mysteries” that attracts men “who flatly despise reason.”

The Hebrews as God’s “chosen people”? “Nonsense,” said Spinoza.

An informed and honest reading of Mosaic law, Spinoza insisted, revealed that God favored the Jews only by selecting for them a thin strip of territory where they could live in peace.

And scripture the “word of God”? Spinoza’s powerful prose scattered that idea to the winds as he claimed that the Bible contains only spiritual truth—namely, the practice of justice and charity—not terrestrial truths. All those who find terrestrial laws and t...

The preface ended with a warning, “I ask the multitude not to read my book,” and went on to explain that the “superstitious, unlearned populace, who hold that reason is nothing but a handmaid to theology, will gain nothing from ...

The introduction noted that the book was quickly banned by the state, by the Catholic Church, by the Jews, and soon after, by the Calvinists.

Hitler strode confidently to the front of the audience of forty and with no introduction launched quickly into an impassioned warning of the danger posed to Germany by the Jews. “I have come,” he spat out, “to warn you about the Jews and to urge a new kind of anti-Semitism. I urge an anti-Semitism based on fact, not emotions. Emotional anti-Semitism leads only to ineffective pogroms. That is not the solution. We need more, far more, than that. We need a rational anti-Semitism. Rationality leads us to only one absolutely unshakeable conclusion: the elimination of Jews from Germany altogether.”

Then he issued another warning. “The revolution that swept the crowned head of Germany from power must not open the door for Judeo-Bolshevism.”

The real issue is their race, their tainted blood that is every day, every hour, every minute, weakening and threatening Germany.

Hitler continued and began to pound on his chest with each point—“you must realize you cannot turn a blind eye to this problem. Nor can small steps solve this problem—this problem of whether our nation can ever recover its health. The Jewish germ must be eradicated. Don’t be misled into thinking you can fight a disease without killing the carrier, without destroying the bacillus. Do not think you can fight racial tuberculosis without taking care to rid the nation of the carrier of that racial tuberculosis.”

Three years later Hitler would dedicate the second volume of Mein Kampf to Dietrich Eckart, “that man who devoted his life to awakening our people in his writings, his thoughts, his deeds.”

There was another difference too. Whereas Alfred often spoke of the necessity of “removing” Jews from Europe, or “resettling” or “relocating” or “evicting” the Jews, Hitler used different language. He spoke of “exterminating” or “eradicating” Jews, even of hanging all Jews from lampposts.

But thus far in his genealogical research he had found only that Spinoza’s father, Michael D’Espinoza, had possibly come from Spain and immigrated to Portugal and then to Amsterdam in the early seventeenth century.

Still, his investigations had yielded unexpected, interesting results. Just a week ago he had discovered that Queen Isabella, in the fifteenth century, proclaimed bloodstain laws (limpiezas de sangre) that prevented converted Jews from holding influential positions in the government and the military. She was wise enough to understand that the Jewish malignancy did not emanate from religious ideation—it was in the blood itself. And she put it into law! Hats off to Queen Isabella! He now revised his opinion of her. Previously, he had always connected her only with the discovery of America—that cesspool of racial mixing.

Hitler’s apt phrase—that amazing man had such a way with words: “Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism—what difference does it make? They are all part of the same religious swindle.”

The guard reached over, turned back a few pages, pointed to the signature of Albert Einstein (dated November 2, 1920), and, tapping the page, proudly said, “Nobel laureate for physics. A famous scientist. He spent almost a whole day reading in this library and writing a poem to Spinoza. Look there,” he pointed to a small framed page of paper hanging on the wall behind him. “It’s his handwriting—he made us a copy. It’s the first stanza of his poem.”

How I love this noble man More than I can say with words. Still, I fear he remains alone With his shining halo.

and inspired by other preceding philosophers. Kant influenced Hegel; Schopenhauer influenced Nietzsche; Plato influenced everyone.

Alfred had seen the face of hell: A Jewish guard with authority over an Aryan, Jews blocking access to non-Jews, Jews imprisoning a great philosopher who despised Jews. He would never forget this day.

The rabbi’s tone conveyed to the class the expectation that no student should ever again raise such a foolish question. And no one ever had. Nor, it seemed to Bento, had anyone but he himself observed that the people of Israel collectively in their reverential posture toward the Torah had committed the very sin that God, through Moses, had most warned them against: idolatry. The Jews everywhere worshipped not golden idols but idols of paper and ink.

If I am among men who do not agree at all with my nature, I will hardly be able to accommodate myself to them without greatly changing myself A free man who lives among the ignorant strives as far as he can to avoid their favors

free man acts honestly, not deceptively Only free men are genuinely useful to one another and can form true friendships And it is absolutely permissible, by the highest right of Nature, for everyone to employ clear reason to determine how to live in a way that will allow him to flourish.

“Yes, most of my formal training. But psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish. Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I’m still learning. If you see anything about me that might help me know more about myself, please do not hesitate to point it out.”

Tell me what you thought of the book?” “Lucid, courageous, intelligent. It’s a devastating critique of Judaism and Christianity—or, as my friend Hitler puts it, the ‘whole religious swindle.’ However, I do question Spinoza’s political views. There is no doubt he is naïve in his support for democracy and individual freedom. Only look at where those ideas have led us to in Germany today. He seems almost to be advocating an American system, and we all know where America is heading—to a half-caste mulatto disaster of a country.”

“I’m transporting myself back to university days and listening to my philosophy professor’s lectures. I remember him saying that Spinoza was a towering figure in intellectual history. That he was one lonely man who was excommunicated by the Jews, whose books were banned by Christians, and who changed the world. He claimed that Spinoza introduced the modern era, that the enlightenment and the rise of natural science all began with him. Some consider Spinoza as the first Westerner to live openly without any religious affiliation. I remember how your father publicly scorned the church. Eugen told me he refused to set foot in church, even at Easter or Christmas. True?”

Before Spinoza, such an open opposition toward religion would have been unthinkable. And you were perceptive in spotting his role in the rise of democracy in America. The American Declaration of Independence was inspired by the British philosopher John Locke, who was in turn inspired by

“It contrasts with ‘transcendence.’ It refers to the idea that this worldly existence is all there is, that the laws of nature govern everything and that God is entirely equivalent to Nature. Spinoza’s denial of any future life was monumentally important for the philosophy that followed, for it meant that all ethics, all codes of life meaning and behavior must start with this world and this existence.” Friedrich paused. “That’s about all that comes to mind . . . Oh yes, one last thing. My professor claimed that Spinoza was the most intelligent man who ever walked the earth.”

And yet how could such thoughts have come from a Jew? Alfred started to add, but refrained.

Alfred said, “I still have my Ethics but haven’t opened it for years.” Blowing on his tea and taking a sip, Friedrich turned back to Alfred. “I think now is the time to start reading it. It is a difficult read. I took a yearlong course in it, and often in class we spent an entire hour discussing one page. My advice is to go slow. It’s inexpressibly rich and addresses almost every important aspect of philosophy—virtue, freedom, and determinism, the nature of God, good and evil, personal identity, mind-body relationship. Perhaps only Plato’s Republic had such a wide scope.”

his fundamental idea that nothing is contingent, that everything in Nature is orderly, understandable, and necessitated by other causes to be exactly that which it is.

Or perhaps he wanted logic to reign, to make himself entirely invisible and let his conclusions be defended by logic, not by recourse to rhetoric or authority, nor prejudged on the basis of his Jewish background. He wanted the work to be judged as a mathematical text is judged—by the sheer logic of his method.”