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1 - Reading scripture rightly

Charlie Huenemann
Charlie Huenemann
Affiliation:
Utah State University
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Summary

Those who consider the Bible in its current state a letter from God, sent from heaven to men, will undoubtedly protest that I have sinned “against the Holy Ghost” by claiming the word of God is erroneous, mutilated, corrupt and inconsistent, that we have only fragments of it, and that the original text of the covenant which God made with the Jews has perished.

(Theological-Political 12.1)

[M]y intellect does not extend so far as to embrace all the means God possesses for bringing men to the love of himself, that is, to salvation.

(Letters 21, to Blijenburgh)

CONTROVERSIES IN INTERPRETATION

Spinoza published his Theological-Political Treatise (1670) in the midst of a controversy over how the Bible is to be interpreted: a controversy that seems to be present in just about every age. The basic tension is always between what the Bible seems to say, at least on its surface, and the various sets of doctrines and beliefs we want to see in it. The two are usually quite different. Broad traditions within Judaism and Christianity understand God to be an infinite, perfect and eternal being, omniscient and omnipotent and perfectly benevolent. Reason itself, it has seemed, even requires this view of a perfect being. But the Bible only occasionally supports such an idea.

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Spinoza's Radical Theology
The Metaphysics of the Infinite
 , pp. 11 - 30
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2013

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